


Hellmouth Redux

by lydiamartin (dwinchester)



Series: Beacon Hells [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-03 16:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dwinchester/pseuds/lydiamartin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Junior year has barely started, but it isn't going the way Stiles expected. Scott is busy with Isaac, his crush on Lydia is nearly nonexistent, and there's a new guidance counselor that knows more about Stiles than he had even been willing to admit to himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome to the Hellmouth

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChildOfTheRevolution](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChildOfTheRevolution/gifts).



Stiles kept staring at the yellow pass in his hand, as though taking his eyes away from it would make it disintegrate or burst into flames. Miss Morrell had been the guidance counselor, but the handwriting on the pass was unfamiliar. It was only the first week back, so he tried to forgive himself for not noticing her absence, but he knew how dangerous Beacon Hills could be. He stopped in front of the office door, hesitating for a moment before he brought his hand up to knock on it lightly. 

"Oh, fuck! Shit. Stop swearing. I am so unprofessional." 

Stiles laughed and grabbed the doorknob, preparing to twist it open. The new counselor yanked on it from the other side, and Stiles nearly fell forward. He blinked in surprise when he realized he had come to a stop on an angle. The counselor's hand was pressed against his shoulder, keeping him from doing a faceplant. Noticing that the fingernails were coated in a light purple nail polish, his gaze traveled up her arm. He stood up straight when he made eye contact. "Sorry." 

"For what?" She closed the door behind him and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. 

"For being a spaz?" Stiles guessed, feeling even more confused when the counselor snorted. "Right. Okay. Why am I here?" 

"The principal asked me to pull the thickest files from the student records and call those students into my office, just to check in with them." She paused and sat down behind her desk, motioning for him to sit down. "I probably shouldn't tell you that. Too late now, I guess." She shrugged, then looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. "I kind of thought teenagers liked sitting down. In fact, I have a not-so-dim memory of being a teenager and really liking chairs because they prevented me from having to stand, unless I was in trouble for something. Do teachers still make students stand up as punishment?" 

"No, they just have an insane love for detention." Stiles dropped his backpack beside the chair and sat down, staring across the desk at her. He looked at her nameplate. "B. Summers. What does the B stand for?" 

The counselor smiled. "Business. As in, none of yours. Considering the fact that you don't seem to go by your first name either, I'd say that you have to respect my decision not to actually answer your question." 

"Okay, Miss Summers." Stiles leaned back in his chair. "Miss? Ms. Summers. Mrs. Summers?" 

"Miss." Buffy answered. She glanced at the file in front of her, then set it aside. "I'm not a psychologist. I'm a guidance counselor. I want to make that clear because I don't have a degree. I'm more like... a go-between for the students and faculty members. So I'm not really one of 'them,' okay?" 

"Okay?" Stiles wasn't sure where she was going with this. "Look, I'm not interested in being your friend. I have enough friends, and I'm good with those. Besides, you're..." He trailed off, closing his mouth as he realized what he had been about to say. 

Buffy smiled. "Old? It's fine. I had a mentor when I was your age that I thought was old, too. Of course, in my case? He was. I'm not that old. I'm only thir- you know what? Let's not talk about me. We're here to talk about you." 

Stiles grinned. "I'd rather talk about you." He paused. "Oh god, that sounded like flirting. I'm not flirting." 

"Right." Buffy mimicked Stiles' earlier tone. "We'll talk about both of us at once, then. Let's see. Always getting in trouble, hate your first name, one of your friends is kind of a moron but you love him anyway. How am I doing, so far?" 

"That's scarily accurate." Stiles stared at her. "What else?" His curiosity was definitely piqued. 

"You only have one parent, you feel sometimes like you're the one taking care of them instead of the other way around. And you have to take care of your friends, who don't always listen to you. You've watched them change and you've had no control over it, and you hate that." 

Stiles exhaled slowly, nodding. "Yeah. How do you know all of this about me, though?" 

Buffy tapped the file folder. "It's mostly here, but I know how to read what isn't in these pages. I'm not asking you to be my best friend, Stiles. I already have friends, and I'm not that creepy. I just want you to know that we have enough in common that if you want to talk to me, I understand." She glanced at the folder again, making a face. "I'd love to be able to throw this away, but that would get me fired. So let's just pretend I did, for the symbolism." She opened a desk drawer and set the folder in it, then closed the drawer. "I'm offering you a fresh start. Sort of. I can't erase what all of this paperwork says. But I can ignore it. Nobody's going to give a shi- crap how many detentions you had after you've graduated, anyway. Believe me, I know." 

"Yeah, but what do you want?" Stiles frowned. 

"What makes you think I want something?" Buffy countered. 

"Because everybody wants something. Nobody ever just does anything." 

"You're lucky I'm not a psychologist. I might read a little too much into that." Buffy rested her hands on the desk. "If you're willing to be completely honest with me, I'll be completely honest right back." She offered. "Because I'm not a psychologist. I don't have a degree or training. I know there are things I'm not supposed to do, but those only apply to people that don't want to lose their medical license. I don't have one, so I'm kind of above the law, that way. I'm an expert in other things." 

"That sounds like flirting, too." Stiles remarked, smiling. 

Buffy wrinkled her nose. "Sorry, but I like my guys older." 

"Me too." Stiles blurted, then looked horrified. "Oh my god. I didn't say that. You didn't hear that. Please don't make me talk about it." 

"I'm supposed to keep you here for another twenty minutes, so we have to talk about something." Buffy frowned. 

Stiles was surprised to realize that he felt guilty for not wanting to talk to her. What would he say? 'Miss Summers, most of my friends are werewolves.' He didn't think that would go over very well. "How did you get this job?" 

"The principal owed me a favor. Or I owed him one. It depends on who you ask. Either way, I'm here to talk. And to help. And now I get to ask you a question. Oh, I like this game." She smiled. "Which teacher is your least favorite?" 

"Harris." Stiles answered automatically, feeling confused again when the counselor did a double take. He kept speaking, not sure what was going on, but figuring he wouldn't get an answer if he asked, anyway. "He's the science teacher and he's got it in for me." He paused. "It feels good to say that. I don't think Miss Morrell would have understood." 

"Morrell. The counselor I'm replacing?" Buffy guessed, looking relieved when Stiles nodded. "Okay. When do you have his class? From now on, I'll just make sure to schedule sessions with you during that. That'll probably help with your detention problem, I'm guessing. He's given you a lot of it over the last couple of years." 

Stiles stared at her.

"That's okay, right?" Buffy prompted. 

"I'm sorry, I think I just fell in love with you." Stiles blurted. "Seriously. I'm not even seventeen yet, but you can wait for me, right?" 

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Get out of my office." 

"My time isn't up yet." Stiles protested. 

"Oh, now you want to stay and talk?" Buffy looked around the room, then opened another drawer in her desk and got something out, reaching across the desk to set it down in front of Stiles. 

"You're giving me candy?" Stiles looked from the chocolate bar to Buffy and back a few times. "That's such a pedo thing to do. You do want to marry me!" He looked smug for a moment, then burst out laughing. 

"I'm actually giving you the candy to make you be quiet." Buffy explained, unable to avoid smiling, herself. "It's a nice trick though, right? I used to get cookies all the time from my wa- mentor. It was to keep me from talking too much, too." She leaned back in her seat and twisted from one side to the other in it. "You're basically me, but younger and male. I feel a little bit sorry for you, as a result. But only because I know what I've been through, so I have a good idea of what you're going to go through." 

"No offense." Stiles unwrapped the candy bar and bit into it, chewing carefully before he spoke again. "But unless you had a crush on someone that barely noticed you were alive, I don't think you can understand. And I know this really isn't something I should say, but you're... you look... nice. You know. That word is too tame for what I really mean, but I can't say what I really mean because that's offensive, and I don't think you'd give me more candy or want to get me out of dealing with my psycho teacher if I said what I was really thinking. Let me just remind you that I'm a teenage boy and we're kind of attracted to anything that moves." 

Buffy stared at Stiles as he spoke, her expression passive. She rested her elbows on her desk, crossing her forearms so that her hands were on her shoulders. She tilted her head. "You think that doesn't happen to girls?" 

"What? Crushes?" Stiles thought over his words, giving her a puzzled look. 

"Uh huh." Buffy nodded. "You like someone, they don't like you, but they like someone you can't stand, and that's so annoying." She smiled faintly. "I'm telling you. I've been through all of this. It doesn't make it any easier when you're also dealing with vampires and werewolves." 

Stiles nearly dropped the candy bar, fumbling with it for a moment. "What?" 

"I thought so." Buffy responded, even though that didn't answer Stiles' question. "Let me guess one more thing. If I'm right, then you owe me a candy bar. If I'm wrong... I'm not wrong." Her lips twitched. "The guy you like isn't exactly normal, is he? Older, likes to sneak up on you, only tells you what he wants you to know and then disappears?" 

"You are actually freaking me out right now." Stiles gaped at Buffy. "I don't think I want to come back in this office, like, ever." 

"Hey, at least I didn't slam an ancient book of vampire lore down in front of you." Buffy muttered. 

Stiles sighed. The counselor was all over the place, and she was almost worse than him with her random babbling. "What kind of candy bar do you want?" 

"Snickers. Please." Buffy smiled. "And let's keep this between us." She paused. "Which means you're going right up to your friends and telling them. I'm not stupid. I get how it works." The bell rang. "Try not to tell everyone, okay?" 

Stiles grabbed his backpack and stood up, nodding at her. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow?" 

"Not if I see you first." She winced. "Oh god, that was terrible." 

Stiles didn't stop laughing until he got to his locker. 

*****

It wasn't that Stiles was trying to keep the counselor a secret from Scott or anyone else. He wanted to tell Scott, but there had only been one more class before the end of the school day, and it wasn't one they had together. Afterward, he had gone to the track tryouts, while Scott was either with Isaac or signing himself up for tennis again. 

Summer vacation had felt strange. Scott had summer school, so Stiles didn't see much of him. Allison had gone to Paris with her dad, leaving no word about when she would be back. Jackson went off to find his biological relatives, which meant that Stiles was suddenly spending a lot more time with Lydia and Danny. Instead of feeling grateful, it only made him frustrated. He wasn't a replacement for Jackson, but he never bothered telling them that. Having someone around was better than having no one. Erica was someone he visited often; her grave marker always needed fresh flowers. The pack of alpha werewolves were buried in a mass grave, somewhere under Derek's floorboards. 

Derek had an apartment now, in the wealthy part of town - or, as Stiles referred to it, 'those five blocks.' When Stiles wasn't in the cemetery or letting Lydia talk him into getting a 'dude-icure' (she hated when he called it that, which was why he did it so often, crush be damned), he was trying to settle arguments between Derek and Peter, Derek and Boyd, or Derek and just about anyone else in the apartment complex. 

It's not like he wanted to like Derek. 

Okay, maybe he did. But he tried not to. 

He pulled his dinner out of the microwave and carried it into the living room, setting it on the coffee table as he got a text message. It was from Lydia. 

'Did you make the track team?' 

Stiles tapped the keys in rapid succession, sitting down on the couch. 'I won't know until tomorrow.' He sent the text, then debated on whether or not he should mention the new counselor to Lydia. Just as he decided not to, he got a text from Danny. 

'Need to talk. On my way over. Bringing Lydia.' 

Stiles dropped the phone onto the cushion beside him and leaned forward, shoveling food into his mouth as fast as he could. Just as he was getting a drink of water and trying to make sure he didn't choke to death, the front door opened. "I'm in the kitchen!" 

Lydia eyed him critically as she walked into the room. "You inhaled your food again, didn't you?" 

"Maybe." Stiles mumbled. "But so what?" 

"There are werewolves that have been trying to kill us for most of this year, and you're going to choke to death on chicken fried rice." Lydia reached up to mess with Stiles' hair. "Danny wants to talk about the new counselor." 

"She called him into the office, too?" Stiles frowned, his hand wrapping around Lydia's arm as he walked back into the living room with her. It was habitual now. Odd, since his crush on her was nearly nonexistent, that he would be this comfortable about maintaining physical contact. He let go as he picked up his cell phone and sat down beside Danny, who had taken his vacated spot on the couch. "What did she want to talk to you about?" 

"My record." Danny frowned. "I didn't think that would be in my school file. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not. I don't think she's actually a guidance counselor. Or at least, if she is, she's probably working for your dad." 

Stiles shook his head. "I would have known by now." 

"Yeah, I sort of figured that." Danny nodded. "What did she say to you?" 

"Just that she knows about werewolves." Stiles didn't want to mention anything else. Well, not everything. "She gave me candy." 

"So she's a sex offender that knows about werewolves?" Lydia surmised, kneeling on the other side of the coffee table so that she could face both of the guys. 

"She didn't try to lure me into a van or grope me." Stiles looked defensive, even as he laughed. "And not to belittle myself, but if she was interested in teenage dick, why would she want mine? You heard Danny. She called him into the office, too." 

"I'm gay." Danny sighed. "You know that." 

"Yes, but she doesn't. Not that actual sex offenders care. We're so far off the topic right now." Stiles thought back over the conversation with Miss Summers. He didn't like the way that Lydia had insulted her, so he wanted to tell his friends something that would make them change their minds. "I trust her. Is that enough for both of you?" 

"No." Lydia shook her head. "I need more than that." 

"Yeah, I thought you would." Stiles nodded. "She asked me which teacher I disliked the most. I told her Harris and she said she'd pull me out of his class when she wants to talk to me. And she pays attention to details, the way all of us do. She definitely noticed that just about all of my detentions have been from Harris. If I'm not in his class, he can't give me detention, which means I might actually not have detention for awhile. She just... she's like me, in a lot of ways. Or at least, she's good at lying about it. But she guessed correctly about things that weren't even in my file. So either she's been stalking me since January, or I really can trust her. I want to trust her. Can you trust me about trusting her?" 

"Damn it, Stiles." Lydia frowned. "I can try. I'm going to her office sometime tomorrow. She's going to talk to me whether she wants to or not. I don't like that she's singling both of you out. No offense, but you're both a little too easy to manipulate." 

Stiles stared back at Lydia, hoping that the look on his face didn't convey too much. After what had happened with Peter controlling her, it was only natural for Lydia to be concerned about anyone looking to use her or her friends, but that didn't mean she was completely immune to having it happen to her a second time. 

Obviously, Stiles' expression had given away his thoughts, because Lydia scowled. "Shut up, Stiles." 

"Sorry." Stiles murmured. "Did you look her up yet?" He glanced over at Danny. 

"Yeah, but it wasn't much to go on without her first name, which she's keeping quiet. I checked in the office at school. There's no paperwork on her. I'm not sure she's actually employed by the school. She might just be a volunteer. But the principal is new, too. And so is the librarian." Danny unzipped his backpack and handed a thin stack of papers to Stiles. "I already gave Lydia a copy, and I have mine at home. You can keep these." 

Stiles skimmed over the papers. "Our principal's last name is Wood?" He grinned, then pouted and rubbed his ear after Danny flicked it. "Harsh. I'm just looking for a silver lining here. The last time our school got infiltrated, it was by the Argents. That didn't end well for anyone." 

"Find out what you can about her tomorrow." Danny advised Lydia and Stiles. "I'm backing off for now. I've done what I can without getting busted. I'll keep an eye on the librarian, though. I have a free period that I can spend figuring out what his deal is. If he has one." 

"So do I. Second period. I guess that means I'll be helping out in the principal's office?" Lydia suggested. 

"Yeah." Stiles set the papers aside. "If she had been following me, Derek would have known. He would have said something." 

Lydia and Danny exchanged looks. 

"What?" Stiles demanded. "You think she knows Derek?" 

"No, sweetie." Lydia leaned forward across the table and gripped Stiles' hand in hers. "We think that you're a little too hung up on Derek." 

"Ever since he got here, everyone has been at risk. We would all be better off if he and his uncle just left town." Danny gave Stiles a sympathetic look. "You can do better." 

Stiles looked back and forth between Lydia and Danny, then burst out laughing. "Peter killed Laura before Derek got back here, first of all. That wasn't his fault. The Argents must have been tracking Derek. If they were looking for Peter, it's not like he was going much of anywhere. As far as we all knew at that point, anyway. I don't like Peter, but on a scale of Lydia to Harris, he ranks higher than Greenberg. As for me doing better, show me one person that's had any interest in me romantically, sexually or otherwise." 

"Erica?" Danny suggested. 

"Yes, and she's dead now." Stiles muttered. "And you're forgetting how she hit me in the face with part of my Jeep." 

Lydia looked like she was fighting back laughter. "Stiles, what the hell does 'otherwise' mean, in that context?" 

"I don't like you anymore." Stiles grumbled, smiling. "Anyway, I haven't told Scott about this." 

"I'm tutoring him in math. Do you want me to say something?" Lydia reached for her purse, waiting for Stiles' response to see if she needed to send a text. 

"Not yet." Stiles bit his lip, feeling guilty about keeping a secret from his best friend. Former best friend? He did spend more time with Lydia and Danny these days, after all. "We'll tell him if he needs to be told. For right now, let's just assume that these new faculty members are only here to replace the ones we lost last year, and that's it." 

"When do you want to tell Derek?" Danny asked, his tone casual. 

Stiles spoke before he had much time to think about it. "Friday. That's the day I'm usually there, anyway." 

"Friday night is date night, Stiles." Lydia smiled. 

"Yes, for people who have dates." Stiles shook his head. "Just let me... I mean, Derek isn't interested in me. So what difference does it make if I spend time with him? It's not going to end up going anywhere." He squeezed Lydia's hand. "It didn't get me anywhere with you, and I held on for eight years. I don't know how to not have feelings for someone. It's part of who I am. It doesn't matter to me if he never feels the way about me that I feel about him. It's what I'm used to, anyway." 

"I just want more for you than what you have." Lydia stood up, not letting go of Stiles' hand as she walked around the coffee table and sat in front of the couch, looking up at him. "I almost feel like it's my fault for not wanting you back." Her voice had lowered to a near-whisper. "I'm not going to apologize for it, you understand?" 

Stiles nodded at her. "Yeah. Uh, if you guys don't mind? I have homework I need to do. Track tryouts ran later than I expected." 

Danny sighed and stood up, picking up his backpack and slinging one strap over his shoulder. "We'll see you tomorrow, Stiles." He walked outside with Lydia, pulling the door closed behind them. 

Stiles rubbed his eyes, suddenly feeling exhausted. He grabbed the papers that Danny had brought over, carrying them up to his room. He flopped down onto his stomach on his bed, burying his face in his pillow. A breeze blew in through his half-open window. He sat up, staring over at the window for a minute before he got up to close it the rest of the way. He hadn't left it open before he went to school, so there was only one reason for it to be open now. "Derek." He muttered, pushing the window down and latching it. He wasn't sure if Derek had heard the conversation he had with Lydia and Danny, but he wasn't exactly interested in calling him to ask, either. "Everything sucks so much right now." He muttered, laying back down and closing his eyes.


	2. Some Assembly Required

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I hated Tuesdays. They were the worst."

Buffy had meant to keep an eye on the clock when she started listening to her iPod, but it was ten-thirty before she knew it, and Stiles was letting himself into the office. She got a little tangled up in the cord for her earbuds, but took them out of her ears before she tried to resolve her situation. "Sorry. I lost track of time. The good news is, your classes are forty-five minutes long, which means that if I want to keep you here for the full duration of your science class, I can. If we don't have anything more to talk about, you can just do homework. It's better for you to at least be here and excused than get in trouble for ditching. Not that I ever ditched." She smiled. "I was a perfect student, really. I never... did you bring me a Snickers?" 

Stiles laughed and set the chocolate bar on her desk. "It's what you asked for, and I did owe you one." He sat back in his chair, trying not to fidget now that he had nothing to do with his hands. He looked relieved when the counselor set a stress ball in front of him. "Thank you." He picked it up and started squeezing it in his palm. "I do appreciate that you're preventing me from dealing with a teacher that hates me with the fire of over nine thousand suns..." He smirked. "But I don't really have anything that I need to talk about with you." 

"Are you sure?" Buffy unwrapped the Snickers and took a bite. She set it aside. "Were you close with Erica Reyes?" 

Stiles groaned. "You're not my grief counselor, here to hug me. Are you?" 

Buffy rolled her eyes. "First of all, that show gets everything wrong. Nice reference, though. No, I'm not going to hug you. That could get me fired. I don't have a good history with jobs, but I don't want that sort of thing following me around. Besides, your dad is the Sheriff. Cops and I? Also not things... people... that go so well together. It's not like I have a bad habit of breaking laws, I just don't really care about getting in trouble for arson when a building is full of vampires." She paused, frowning at Stiles. "Am I saying too much? You don't look like you're going to run away, screaming. I kind of have that effect on people." 

"Uh, no?" Stiles cleared his throat. "I just know someone whose family didn't make it out of a fire, so... that's... yeah. You're a hunter?" 

Buffy shook her head. "You're trying to dodge my question right now. Don't think I didn't notice." She studied the teenager across from her, then nodded to herself. "Okay. If you answer my question about Erica, you can ask me any twenty questions you want, and I'll answer. As long as they're appropriate. Nothing... gross. Obviously." 

"You're starting to make me think that you've had bad experiences with students hitting on you." Stiles remarked, leaning to his side to get a pen and a notebook out of his backpack. He glanced up at her. "Have you?" 

"Erica first, and then your questions." Buffy repeated. She picked up the candy bar and took another bite, glancing wistfully at her iPod. 

"Okay. Yeah, I knew Erica." Stiles started writing, then stopped to look at Buffy again. "She had epilepsy, and some dicks here at school recorded her having a seizure and put it on youtube, like it was hilarious. She peed herself during." He scowled, remembering how helpless he had felt when he heard about it. He hadn't been in the class with her at the time. "De- a werewolf I know offered to turn her, and she accepted because it meant not having seizures anymore. Another werewolf killed her. I feel like I shouldn't even be telling you this because I don't really know you, but I really think..." He hesitated. "Sometimes I just know when people are worth talking to about things like this." 

"Is there anyone else you can talk to? Scott McCall, right? That's your best friend? You guys have been involved in lacrosse together and you've both received detention from Mr. Harris more than once, reason being that you were disrupting class." Buffy spoke as though she was reciting things from memory that she had read in Stiles' records. 

Stiles looked up from his notebook again. "Yeah. I guess. It's been weird since the end of the last school year. We still talk, but he's got other interests. I do too, I mean. It's not like I've been sitting around and waiting for him to have time to hang out with me. But he's been my best friend since kindergarten, with the exception of middle school because he lived with his dad and didn't go to school here. I, um... Morrell never took notes, either." 

"Do you want me to take notes?" Buffy asked. "I could, but I kind of end up doodling things. I'm not even good at it. It just looks like scribbles." 

"No." Stiles was starting to feel like he was the adult talking to a teenager, instead of the other way around. "It's fine. It's just something I noticed." 

"You seem like you notice a lot." Buffy mused. 

"I kind of have to." Stiles grimaced, wishing he could take the words back. "Are you gonna..." He gestured vaguely. 

"Make you talk about that? Only if you want to talk about it." Buffy's tone was gentle. "Your dad gets paid to look at all of the details and see the big picture, so it's something you learned, isn't it? There's nothing wrong with that. I would have been a cop myself, but I don't like the uniforms. And again, there's that whole thing about having to do what you're told all the time." 

"Yeah." Stiles laughed nervously. "That's not my favorite thing about school right now. Once a teacher gets it in their head that they hate you, it doesn't matter what you do or say. I could discover a cure for cancer in my chem class, but Harris would just scream at me for not doing the assignment he gave me." 

"My high school principal was like that." Buffy wrinkled her nose. "He used to give me mandatory volunteer things to do around school. I had to host parent-teacher night when I was a junior. I screwed up some stuff on purpose because I knew it would just reflect badly on him. I made lemonade without sugar." She smiled. "He was such an asshole." 

"What happened to him?" Stiles stuck his pen cap in his mouth and chewed on it absentmindedly. He knew he was supposed to be trying to get answers out of her now, instead of giving her a list of questions that she could make up answers for when he couldn't tell whether or not she was lying, but he knew that if he kept her talking about herself, it would mean less time for him to have to get into all of his own issues. 

"The mayor ate him." Buffy shrugged. "Your town is Pleasantville, compared to where I grew up. Pleasantville before Reese Witherspoon, actually. I hated Tuesdays. They were the worst." She looked impatient. "Are you done with your questions yet?" 

"No." Stiles laughed. "I have five more. But since you're getting me out of dealing with a lot of crap right now, I'll... you can ask me something. I feel like this has been more like your counseling session than mine, since I've sort of tricked you into talking about yourself." 

"You didn't trick me into anything, Stiles." Buffy shook her head. "Trust has to be earned, especially with what you've been going through. I already know most of it, I just kind of want your perspective because certain people put spins on things and make them sound either better or worse than they really are. Why do you think I called you into... you know what? Hold on." She stood up, getting keys out of her pocket and unlocking the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet. She set a large file in the desk, held shut with a large rubber band. "That's mine, from high school." She opened the drawer from the day before, where she was keeping Stiles' student records. "This is yours." She set it beside her own file. "Mine's bigger." Her lips twitched as she tried not to laugh. "But your junior year just started and this is everything up through my graduation. Before you ask, the answer is no. I'm not _letting you_ read this." She gave him a pointed look, then deliberately put her file in the drawer where Stiles' folder had been, before putting his in the filing cabinet that had the locking drawer on it. 

Stiles watched her carefully, wondering if it was a trick. If he came back in here after school and got her file, would she hurt Derek? Tell his dad? Hurt Scott? He tried not to dwell on the fact that Derek had been his first concern, and Scott was an afterthought. 

"You can leave the questions with me, and I'll give you the list back tomorrow." Buffy pointed at the clock above her door. "You've got ten minutes, if you want to go to your locker or something." 

Stiles wrote down his last question and tore the page from his notebook, then handed it to her. He put everything into his backpack. "Tomorrow, then?" 

Buffy nodded, glancing up from the paper. "Uh-huh. Same Bat time and all of that." 

*****

"You look surprised to see me." 

Stiles finished chewing his bite of food. "I'm not surprised." He lied, frowning at Scott. "Okay, maybe I'm a little surprised. I didn't hear from you last night, and I don't know, I kind of thought that now that school is back in session, you'd be less... Lahey-happy." 

Scott shook his head as he smiled. "Are you jealous of Isaac?" 

"He hasn't had time." Lydia interrupted, sitting down beside Stiles. "He's been busy with me and Danny. You know. The people who actually spent time with him over summer vacation?" She nudged Stiles' shoulder. "We're the three musketeers, only we have better taste in fashion." 

"What did you find out?" Stiles blurted, too impatient to wait until after school. 

"Nothing." Lydia shrugged. "He's kind of charming, but he seemed busy. He barely left his office the entire time I was there. If he's anything like you, he was probably watching porn the entire time." 

"Hey!" Stiles pouted. "I do more than watch porn."

"Masturbating doesn't count, Stiles." Danny admonished, sitting on Stiles' other side. 

Stiles tried not to feel smug when he saw Scott's expression darken at how comfortable Lydia and Danny were with him now. He missed his friend, but he wasn't so naive that he still thought they would live the way he had planned out as a child, having a house with a gigantic water slide, where Lydia would be his wife and Scott would marry whoever he was going to marry, and their kids would eventually get married to each other. Eight year old Stiles had been a complete dork. 

"Who's charming?" Scott held his chocolate pudding out to Stiles as a peace offering, smiling in relief when Stiles took it and gave him some french fries in return. 

"Principal Wood." Lydia answered. "Where's your puppy?" 

"Isaac isn't my puppy." Scott frowned at her. 

"You knew exactly who I meant." Lydia pointed out. 

"He's got lunch detention with Mr. Harris. Without Stiles to pick on..." Scott trailed off, smiling apologetically at his friend. 

"Don't blame this on me." Stiles muttered. "Since when does Harris give anyone lunch detention? I thought he used that time to pick up the student teachers to take to raves." 

"I'm not hungry anymore." Danny pushed his tray aside. "That's sick. Why would you even say that?" 

"Because I'm not me unless somebody's uncomfortable?" Stiles shrugged. He looked back at Scott and lowered his voice, knowing that the werewolf could still hear him. "The new counselor knows about werewolves, and she's connected to the principal somehow. She told me yesterday that she's here because one of them owed the other a favor, but wasn't really clear about which one was which. The librarian is new, too. We're just trying to make sure they're not hunters. Trying to keep you, Isaac and Boyd safe." 

"And Derek." Danny added, smirking. 

"Yeah, it was awfully convenient that you didn't mention him, Stiles." Lydia teased. 

"He doesn't go here!" Stiles yelled before he could stop himself, horrified when he heard people at the table behind him start laughing. "Please, for the love of all that's holy, don't let everyone start calling me Damian or start asking me where my pink shirt is. I just meant that since they're at the school, we should be more concerned about keeping the werewolves safe that are also at the school." 

"But that includes Derek, too." Scott muttered. "He's always here for some reason." He smiled at Isaac as the other teen sat down beside him. "Hey." 

"Does anyone want my carrots?" Isaac asked quietly. 

"Are you sure they're actually carrots?" Danny stared at the food on Isaac's tray. 

"I like carrots. I'll trade you pizza for them." Boyd joined the group at the table, swapping plates with Isaac. "I can practically smell how disgusted y'all are. I like vegetables. I refuse to be a stereotype." 

"Derek won't be here during the school day anymore, unless it's an emergency." Isaac added, picking up the conversation where Scott had left off. "I asked him to stop, since he could get arrested for that. We don't need that sort of attention." 

"The librarian is kind of old. Not as old as Gerard Argent, but I think he's safe." Danny mumbled. 

"Why are we talking about the librarian?" Boyd frowned. 

"He might be a hunter." Scott explained. 

"Miss Summers sort of gave me permission to read her high school file. I don't know why she has it." Stiles held his hands up defensively. "She just made it pretty obvious that I can take a look at it if I want to. I think she actually wants me to read it. In the meantime, she's answering questions for me. She said I could ask her any twenty I wanted and she'd answer all of them." 

"Why, though?" Lydia frowned. "I don't like it. It seems too easy. It's like she's practically begging you to trust her. That didn't get Derek anywhere, when Kate Argent did it to him. Do you think she'd meet you outside of school?" 

Stiles turned his head to stare at Lydia. "You _don't_ want this to be a situation like Derek and Kate, but you want me to invite her to, what? Go bowling?" 

Lydia shrugged. "If that's what she's into." She scoffed. "I'm not asking you to date her or turn her into some kind of Mary Kay Letourneau wannabe." She stood up and reached across the table to smack Scott when he put his hands over his ears. "Don't be so immature. This is important." She looked at Stiles as she sat back down. "There has to be some kind of neutral ground where all of us can talk to her. The office is too small, and even if she used an empty classroom, she still has to follow rules set in place by the school board. We need to know for certain that we can trust her, and we can't find that out in here. Find out what she's into." 

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it..." Danny remarked, grinning. "Maybe we do need Derek for this. He's older than us, but younger than her. Still, he could sort of..." 

"Bridge the age gap." Lydia supplied, nodding to Danny. "That's a good idea. Talk to him tonight and then check in with her tomorrow morning, and we'll figure it out during lunch." 

Stiles faltered. "Me?" 

"You're the one that's going to talk to her every day. Is that a problem, Stiles?" Lydia glared at him. 

"No, not her. But Derek?" Stiles didn't want to be the one that everyone expected to talk to Derek all the time. They knew how he felt about the older guy, and Stiles wasn't exactly known for his poise. He would inevitably say or do something stupid and irritate the werewolf, and things would only get worse from there. 

Lydia started pointing at everyone as she spoke about them, in turn. "Scott can't talk to Derek because he and Derek hate each other. Isaac doesn't know Miss Summers at all, so he can't answer Derek's questions about her, which he's bound to have. Same goes for Boyd. Danny doesn't talk to Derek enough to have his trust, and I won't go anywhere that Peter might be. Who exactly does that leave, you dolt?" 

Stiles sighed. "Fine, I'll go talk to him after track practice." He smiled. "Hell yeah, I made the team." 

Boyd set what was left of his carrots on Stiles' tray. "You're gonna need better food than that chocolate pudding." 

*****

One thing Stiles had learned over the summer was that the only time he needed to knock on Derek's door was when the werewolf wasn't actually home, which meant that knocking was pointless. On every occasion that Derek was home when Stiles showed up, the werewolf had the door open and was greeting him by the time he got up the stairs to the third floor. That probably had a lot to do with why Stiles' crush had gotten so out of control. He knew it was bad. There were so many reasons why Stiles should just stay away from this part of town altogether. 

The problem was, he didn't think he could, even if he wanted to. 

"You don't look happy." Derek commented, stepping back from his doorway to let Stiles in. "Did Scott talk too much about Allison during lunch?" 

"No, surprisingly enough, he didn't." Stiles murmured, sitting down on Derek's couch. "She's still not back from Paris, if she's even coming back. Her house isn't up for sale, so I was assuming she would be back at some point. It's only the second day of school, so anything could happen. Anything usually does happen." 

"Now you're talking too much about Allison." Derek muttered, handing Stiles a can of soda. "Why are you here?" 

Stiles stared at the can in his hand as though it was the most fascinating thing he had seen in his entire lifetime. "Gee, Derek. Don't act like you're the least bit pleased to see me or anything." 

"You missed my happy dance." Derek retorted. 

Stiles looked up at him in surprise and laughed. "Whatever, you complete asshole. I only came here to tell you that there are new people at school. Faculty members. Possibly hunters. Actually, very likely that they're hunters. Lydia wants me to set up some sort of werewolfy lie detector session for sometime this weekend, which involves me being completely inappropriate and trying to get the guidance counselor to come hang out with all of us. You're supposed to be there so that it looks more like a big group of people that just happen to be different ages, socializing. Otherwise, it'll look like I'm on a date with someone that could get fired for being seen with me, and I'm not even interested in her anyway, since I'm starting to think that she's like... have you ever seen Sliders?" 

"I have, but how have you? Weren't you a fetus when that show was on?" Derek teased. 

"Haha." Stiles rolled his eyes. "Reruns, buddy. You're only three years older than me. If I was a fetus, you were barely out of diapers." 

"Like you said, Stiles. Reruns. What does that have to do with anything, though?" 

"What?" Stiles looked confused for a moment. "Oh. Yeah. You know how they met their double, but it was the opposite gender?" 

Derek's eyebrows raised as he stared at Stiles. "Wormholes don't really happen like that." 

"Yeah, yeah." Stiles shook his head. "No, that's not what I mean. She's from here, as in our reality, if you assume there are other realities. I'm just saying she's a lot like me." 

"So she never shuts up and she's really annoying?" 

Stiles looked down at his drink again. "Whatever." He muttered. "I only came here to tell you that you might possibly be in danger." He hated Lydia for making him do this, but maybe it was something he needed. Derek was never going to like him back, and the sooner he accepted that and stopped coming over, the better off he would be. 

"Stiles." Derek sat down on the other end of the couch. "Is there anything you left out?" 

"Just that I trust her and I think you're not really in danger. Not from her, anyway. I haven't even seen the principal or the new librarian yet. I can let you know more on Friday." Stiles didn't add that he would communicate through text message from now on, but only because carrier pigeons were so unreliable. "Uh, she told me that she knows about werewolves and vampires. I didn't even think vampires were real. And before you ask, no. I didn't just go up to her and ask her if she was aware of their existence. She told me, voluntarily." 

"They're real, they just don't come here because this has been a werewolf town since before my mom was born." Derek held his hand out for the empty can that Stiles was so engrossed in. He got up to rinse it out and put it in the recycling bin, which Stiles had insisted on him getting when he moved into the apartment. "There were a lot of them in Sunnydale, before it caved in." 

Stiles looked up at Derek. "Caved in?" 

"Yeah, back in two thousand and three." Derek nodded. "Earthquake, if I remember it right. Why?" 

"Well..." Stiles got his cell phone out and sent a text to Danny and Lydia, asking them to look up Sunnydale. Since the three of them were the ones more likely to research things, he figured that the other two should know first. If it turned out to be important, then they could tell Scott, Isaac and Boyd. "My guidance counselor went to high school in Sunnydale. She sort of told me without telling me that I could go through her files. You know. Very deliberately asking me not to look, then putting the file away where I could get to it, instead of the drawer with the lock on it, where she'd been keeping it. Lydia thinks Miss Summers is trying to lure me in, on purpose. Like how Kate Argent did to you." He cringed, then glanced up at Derek. "Not that I like bringing it up. I don't. But it's a fair comparison, right?" 

"I don't know." Derek frowned. "Stiles, I was fourteen when that happened to me." 

"Uh, yeah. I did the math." Stiles nodded. "And if it was possible, I'd resurrect her and kick her ass for it all over again." He felt like he had said too much, so he looked away. "I've already tried to look at it objectively, all right? Kate picked you because you weren't getting a lot of attention, and you were lonely. She used that to her advantage and she fucked everything up for you. And now, here I am... I have my friends, but nobody's eager to go out with me. The counselor knows a lot about me, like she's been studying me. It's enough to make me nervous, but I know she hasn't been getting that close. You would have noticed. Not that you're that close, either. You know. I mean, you... I'm just going to stop that line of thinking right there and move on. Thanks for leaving my window open yesterday, by the way. Creeper." He turned sideways on the couch, bringing his knees up to rest on it, but not his feet. There had already been arguments about that. "What I'm trying to say is that if she wanted to manipulate someone in the werewolf and werewolf-adjacent community, she definitely picked the right person, didn't she? I'm pretty much isolated already. There are sociopaths that have to manipulate their victims for years to get them to the point I'm at." He stammered. "So... I'm a good target." 

"But you trust her and you think we should all trust her, too?" Derek asked, ignoring most of Stiles' nervous rambling to get to the point of what he had been trying to say. 

Stiles looked up to meet Derek's eyes. "Yeah." He nodded. "I trust her. I'm no werewolf, but I know how to look for tells that indicate when someone is lying. She's too honest. Like I said, she's like me." 

"You, who lies to your dad on a regular basis? Is that what you call too honest?"

Stiles licked the corner of his mouth, where his lips had gone dry. "Are you saying that you don't trust me at all?" 

Derek was silent for a moment as he stared at Stiles. "Make the plans for Saturday. Just let me know the details. I'll be there." 

Stiles didn't bother pointing out that Derek hadn't answered his question. "Yeah." He muttered. "I'll see you Saturday, then." 

"I thought you were coming over on Friday." 

Stiles had already opened Derek's apartment door. He stepped backward through it, his hand lingering on the doorknob. "I wouldn't want to annoy you by being around too much." He pulled the door shut behind him and walked away, feeling like something in him was broken.


	3. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I hardly think that Stiles hates me." Peter smiled as he watched Scott's face, letting his words sink in. "He spent enough time around me while you were out with Isaac, chasing each other's tails or whatever it was that had you so preoccupied that you neglected someone that I actually admire for having the patience to put up with you. Tell me, has he smacked your nose with a newspaper yet?"

**1\. What's your first name?**

Buffy. No mocking allowed. I know your first name, too. 

**2\. Where did you grow up?**

Los Angeles and Sunnydale, CA

**3\. How do you know Principal Wood?**

He was the principal at SHS when my sister attended.

**4\. How do you know about vampires?**

I'm a vampire slayer.

**5\. How do you know about werewolves?**

My friend's ex-boyfriend is one. 

**6\. Do you know the new librarian?**

Yes. You should have asked for more details here. 

**7\. Who was the older guy you liked? Describe him.**

Angel. A vampire that I started off calling Cryptic Guy, if that tells you anything. 

**8\. You didn't answer before. Has a student ever hit on you?**

Yes. Moving on. 

**9\. What other candy do you like?**

All of it. Except black licorice. Nobody likes that. Why do they make it?

**10\. How tall are you? (Sorry.)**

5'2". 

**11\. How old are you? (Sorry again.)**

30\. :-(

**12\. Why did you move here?**

Because I don't like Belgium.... inside joke that I'm not going to explain. Sorry. Consider it payback for asking me my age.

**13\. Is something bad about to happen?**

As far as I can tell, nothing more than what you're already used to.

**14\. What's your favorite episode of Supernatural?**

Really? Pass. 

**15\. What shows do you usually watch?**

I like Nikita and Project Runway.

**16\. Did you play sports in high school?**

I was a cheerleader for a couple of weeks. That was it for me.

**17\. Why is it so hard to think of questions when I know I had a hundred yesterday?**

That's the way it always works. 

**18\. Have you ever been married? (I know that's a dumbass question. I'm running out of ideas.)**

No. And it's not a dumbass question. I was engaged for a little while. 

**19\. Why is it so important that you talk to me, over everyone else I know?**

Because I've read over all of your files and I know who you are and what you're capable of. 

**20\. Describe yourself in five words or less.**

Shopaholic. Easily bored. Class protector. 

*****

Buffy walked into the library after school, feeling like nothing had really changed. Less than a decade after Sunnydale's implosion, she was wandering the halls of a high school as a guidance counselor where Principal Wood (she never had been able to call him Robin, not even on the one date they'd had) was in the main office and Giles was working in the library. If Stiles' least favorite teacher would just turn out to be a gigantic praying mantis, she could even talk Willow into coming to work with her. She wrinkled her nose as she thought that over, deciding that she would be better off just letting her favorite student deal with at least one lame-o teacher while he had to endure high school. In a twisted way, it kept things normal. She stopped by the library's front counter, giving Giles an innocent smile. "I'll take one french vanilla frappuccino and a lemon poppyseed muffin." 

The librarian scowled at her. "Buffy, this is certainly no time for joking. Have you forgotten that you're here for a reason?" 

"No. Relax, Giles." Buffy commanded. "It's been a long day. There's this kid that has a crush on the Economics teacher, and he keeps coming in to ask me all of these questions about morality and confidentiality. What am I supposed to tell him? 'Sorry, kid. I never had your problem. My high school boyfriend was about a hundred and thirty years older than me, but he wasn't a teacher.' Somehow, I don't think that would go over so well." 

"And it hasn't occurred to you that you're breaking his trust by talking about him with me?" Giles set a book down in front of Buffy. 

"I'm not actually a doctor, so I have no confidentiality clause." Buffy picked up the book. "Besides, Finstock reminds me of Andrew. What is this?" 

"Most people learn about written works by reading them." Giles pushed his glasses up onto his nose. "You might do well to consider that as an option." When Buffy only stared back at him blankly, he took the book away from her. "Dear lord, it's as though you're sixteen all over again and we have to start over with everything! This is the book of prophesies that mentioned your death." 

"And why exactly would I want to read all about the Master again? I kicked his ass and then shattered his bones. There's really no coming back from that. Besides, vampires don't come here." Buffy hesitated. "They won't start showing up now, right? Giles?" 

"I don't know. It's all so vague." Giles admitted, taking off his glasses to polish them. 

"No!" Buffy swatted his hands, almost sending the glasses flying. "You only do that when you have bad news or you don't want to see my reaction. Or both. We've been doing this for half of my lifetime. Whatever it is, just say it." 

"There's a very real possibility that the events that you dealt with in Sunnydale may begin transpiring here." 

"You think I don't know that? I was going to send Faith or Vi out here, before I found out exactly what we had to look forward to. The big selling point was that his first name is Merrick. How am I supposed to just ignore that, Giles? My first Watcher trained Stiles' mom before he started training me. You know how I feel about coincidences. Why would I just be learning about this now, of all times?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "It's because now is when I'm supposed to be here. Just like how I ended up in Sunnydale at the perfect moment for the Hellmouth to open. I'm here, open sesame, hold the mayo. Whatever. I miss good old-fashioned slaying." 

"Er... yes." Giles frowned at her. "I believe the Hellmouth may be having an effect on you. As you said, you seem to be regressing." 

"Unless I come in here tomorrow, talking about cheerleading tryouts and boys, I think we're safe." Buffy shrugged. "As much as I'd like to be younger, 'cause come on... getting older is not fun and I don't know how you can stand it. Especially considering the fact that you went all Ripper on me at least once. How do you even come back from that? Anyway, I don't want to be subjected to cafeteria lunches and homework. If I wake up tomorrow and I'm sixteen, you're homeschooling me. I mean it." 

"I doubt that it would happen that drastically." 

"Can you remember that when you worry, I worry? Please?" Buffy picked up the book from the counter and sat back down as she started reading. "So, do I tell him?" 

"Beg pardon?" Giles glanced up from a different book he was looking through. 

"Stiles. Do I tell him that his mom was a slayer-in-waiting?" 

"I think it best to wait, for the time being. He may not react well." 

"Well, he's probably going to come talk to you tomorrow, during third period. I told him that you might be able to answer questions that I can't, or explain things to him that I wouldn't have even thought of. It's his usual time of day to come talk to me, and how the hell is it even possible for someone with the last name of Harris to be such a yutz?" 

"I believe that's how I felt about Xander, when he was first introduced to me." 

"What?" Buffy frowned at Giles. "He can be weird sometimes, but Xander is a total sweetheart." 

"He left his fiancee at the altar." 

"After you made out with her." 

"I could hardly be blamed for that! That has nothing to do with-"

Buffy smiled. "Go on. Make that chicken noise like Willow said you always make." 

"You're behaving like a child."

"Cluck, cluck." 

*****

Derek laid on his back on the couch where Stiles had been sitting the evening before. He had music playing on his stereo to try to drown out his thoughts, but it seemed like every song reminded him of Stiles somehow. He sighed and sat up, then went into his kitchen to stare into the fridge, even though he wasn't hungry. He had already spent the past hour working out. He was running out of things to do and getting frustrated. 

He wasn't afraid of his feelings for Stiles. Not really. He just knew how these things went. It started off with someone asking him what was on his mind because he was too quiet, and it eventually evolved into them slamming the door behind them after screaming that they never wanted to see him again. 

On days like this, when he could smell the leaves starting to die on the trees, it was a lot harder for him to keep to himself. It was this time of year when he lost most of his family, thanks to his own selfish desires. 

The Beacon Hills High School pool was open all summer, due to the fact that there was no other community pool available in their town. He had spent the summer between eighth and ninth grade swimming there every day, hoping to get Kate Argent to notice him. She was one of the lifeguards; he couldn't help staring at the way her red one-piece looked against her tan skin. 

And then red only reminded him of the flames that engulfed his home. 

Months ago, when Stiles wore his red track suit and had to hold him up in that same pool, Derek couldn't look at him. It was all too familiar and would have made him throw up, if he had any feeling in his abdomen at the time. Of course, he had gained a new appreciation for that same shade of red being associated with Stiles. First, the teen had managed to get a sunburn and needed help spreading aloe vera lotion across his shoulders, back in June. Then Derek needed Stiles' help with researching something new at least once a week, which meant that he sometimes came over without calling ahead of time, and watched red stain Stiles' cheeks when he blushed and left the room with some ridiculous excuse, even though Derek knew that he was going to the bathroom to wash his hands. 

Basically, Derek was screwed. 

Peter made fun of him relentlessly for most of the summer, but had given up on that when he realized he wasn't doing anything more than making his nephew uncomfortable. Since then, he had been trying to encourage Derek to ask Stiles on a date. He had even gone so far as to change Stiles' ringtone on Derek's phone to some song from the nineteen-eighties about telling someone they were in love. Prior to that, it had been the standard ringtone that came with the phone. Sometimes, he really hated his uncle. 

But he hadn't changed the tone back. If Stiles was calling him, he wasn't within listening distance, anyway. 

He wasn't sure he would ever get to the point where he could just tell Stiles how he felt. The few times he had tried to flirt had ended badly, like the night before. He had called Stiles annoying, and he could see the way Stiles closed himself off afterward. Derek hadn't meant to offend Stiles, he just wasn't good at expressing himself. He had never needed to flirt; Kate Argent had done all of the work for him. 

He had tried to have a relationship twice since that summer. 

The first time was during his senior year of high school, when he was living in New York with Laura. Bonnie had been everything that Kate wasn't. Unfortunately for Derek, dating Kate's complete opposite meant being with someone a little bit younger, and Bonnie expected too much of him - more than he was ready for. He had never been the type of guy to want to attend a school dance, so when he had told her that he didn't want to go to Prom with her, she had broken up with him. He spent the last month of his senior year trying to ignore the way everyone talked about him, as though he couldn't hear. In their defense, they had no idea that he was a werewolf and could hear things at the other end of the hall whether he wanted to or not. 

His last relationship had been a year later, when he was nineteen. With a fake ID from Laura and a smile plastered to his face, he had been let into a gay club. He still wasn't interested in dancing, but he hadn't gone there for that sort of thing, anyway. His interest was purely sexual, and he had ended up going home with the bartender. One night turned into two, which somehow became a relationship that lasted three months. According to Edwin, that was a considerable amount of time for any relationship to progress to the next level, which meant moving in together. Derek had been too stunned to respond, and Edwin had mistaken his silence for a dismissal. Derek hadn't had the heart to try to mend things; he suspected that was because he didn't want to be serious about anyone. 

And then he met Stiles. 

That wasn't entirely true. He just hadn't known him very well until he moved back from New York. 

He had known the Stilinskis since before the smell of smoke had permeated his life. His mother and Stiles' mother had been friends. Laura's middle name was the same as Stiles' mother's first name: Renee. He had never asked, having been more interested in all of the things that kids were interested in, and then he was no longer a child, but his family was gone and couldn't answer questions anymore. He could have just asked Laura, but he felt that he had no right to mention his parents or other family members. He had sent everyone to an early grave. 

Stiles had always been over at Scott's house when Renee visited the Hales. Derek thought it had everything to do with the fact that they were werewolves and she didn't want her son to be frightened. 

When Renee had been hospitalized, Stiles spent a week at Derek's house. Stiles had been nine years old at the time, and Derek was twelve. He had been mesmerized by the boy's golden eyes and loud laughter. 

He still was. 

*****

Scott sat on the curb across the street from Allison's house, staring up at it. There was still no For Sale sign in the front yard, telling him that the two remaining Argents were gone for good. He was grateful for that. Isaac had explained it all to him during one day of summer vacation. The transformative bite was like Pandora's box, for people who didn't want it. Namely, Scott himself. He didn't have anything left but hope. He hoped that Allison would come back to Beacon Hills. He hoped that he wouldn't be a werewolf for the rest of his life. He hoped that Stiles would stop looking at him like he was a stranger. It's not that he meant to make his best friend feel abandoned, but Stiles just couldn't understand what being a werewolf was like. Not the way that Isaac could. He knew that if Stiles could hear his thoughts, he would accuse him of victim-blaming. It really wasn't Stiles' fault that he had never asked for the bite. He wouldn't ever explain his reasons, but Scott knew that Stiles thought everything through at least twice. Even his less-brilliant, impromptu plans served a big purpose. Scott didn't doubt for a second that Stiles intentionally got him in trouble, whenever possible. His best friend - he was determined to keep thinking of Stiles that way, needing it to be true again - was an instigator, but he bailed Scott out of trouble just as often as he got him into it. Scott felt like his entire world was off balance without Stiles and Allison around, even though Isaac had proven to be a great friend, as well. He hated the way that everything was changing. He actually missed having asthma. He just wanted his normal life back. 

"You should be aware that sitting out here only reinforces the stereotype that werewolves are more dog than human." Peter rested his hand on Scott's shoulder, rolling his eyes when Scott shrugged him off. "Brooding over your lost love?" 

"You're only out here talking to me because nobody else wants anything to do with you." Scott tilted his head back to glare up at Peter. "You killed your own niece just to take her power away, and then you manipulated Lydia. I'm kind of surprised that Stiles didn't monologue you during summer break." 

Peter smiled cruelly. "I believe the word you meant to use was 'molotov,' not monologue. Although, given what we both know about the object of Derek's affection, maybe monologue isn't too far off the mark. I was simply going for a run and spotted you sitting here, where you really shouldn't be." 

Scott got to his feet. "You only bother talking to people when you want something. I barely know you, but I know that much." He looked down at the sidewalk, scuffing his foot over a crack in the pavement before he glanced back up at Peter. If he walked away now, the older werewolf would just follow him or keep showing up where he wasn't wanted until Scott gave in and asked for more details. "What do you want?" 

"I'll save us both the trouble of pretending you're wrong." Peter murmured, nodding. "If you had been around me more frequently these past two months, you would know that I have returned to being more like my former self. Before the fire, of course. That's not such an easy task. My nephew certainly hasn't managed it yet. I'd like your help with that." 

"What do you expect me to do? I can't change anything about Derek. I don't really want anything to do with him. He's the reason I'm still like this, and I didn't have to be." 

Peter studied Scott, waiting for him to finish his usual angry rant. "It's painfully clear to anyone with two good eyes that my nephew and your friend have feelings for one another. Of course, neither one is willing to do anything about it." He paused, not needing time to think over his words, but preferring the more dramatic effect they had when given a chance to make an impact. He didn't understand why most people in recent years were choosing to say more and mean less. "You do want Stiles to be happy, don't you?" 

"Yeah. But why would you? You don't care about Derek or Stiles. You only care about yourself. What would you get out of this?" 

Peter knew that Scott wouldn't believe him, but he was being honest. "I need a larger pack. It's what I miss. It's familiar. It would help Derek. There is, of course, the added benefit of an eventual addition to the pack. I'm referring to you. Perhaps once you see that Stiles is comfortable around the other werewolves, you'll be more inclined to allow yourself to feel the same way." 

"Even if I did agree to this, how is it going to look when they figure out that we were manipulating them into dating?" Scott shook his head and started backing away. "Anything you and I are both involved in is going to look bad to them, by default. Derek hates me and Stiles hates you." 

"I hardly think that Stiles hates me." Peter smiled as he watched Scott's face, letting his words sink in. "He spent enough time around me while you were out with Isaac, chasing each other's tails or whatever it was that had you so preoccupied that you neglected someone that I actually admire for having the patience to put up with you. Tell me, has he smacked your nose with a newspaper yet?" 

"No!" Scott snapped, looking irritated. "Shut up. I'm not going to force Stiles to do something he doesn't want to do, but if he likes Derek, I'll... I guess I'll try to get him to ask Derek out on a date. But what Stiles ends up doing is up to him. Not me or you." 

"Yes, it's all so very noble of you to protect your friend's virtue this way. Even when he's made it clear to everyone in this town that he would like nothing more than to lose said virtue. That's not an exaggeration, if you were curious. He had a little too much to drink on the fourth of July. If I didn't have such good reflexes, Derek's beloved Camaro would still smell horrible." 

"You got him drunk?!" Scott yelled. 

"Yes, of course that's what you would focus on." Peter rolled his eyes. "It would be in your best interest to focus on what I'm saying to you. Stiles, plus Derek, equals love." He smiled sarcastically and drew a heart in the air with both of his index fingers. "Is that enough for you to understand?" 

"I'll talk to him. That's all I'm going to do. But it's only because Stiles hasn't looked very happy lately." Scott glanced toward Allison's abandoned house again. "I'm going home. Don't follow me." He turned and started walking back in the direction of his house. 

"I wouldn't dream of it." Peter called after him. 

*****

Allison rubbed her eyes as she made her way up the stairs to her bedroom. Her dad had hired someone to dust and collect the mail while they were in Paris. She had to enroll in school when she woke up, but she had made it clear to her dad that she wasn't setting an alarm for herself. It was nearly midnight and she was eager to settle back into a routine. Sleeping in her own bed was a great start. 

She set her suitcase down by her closet door and laid down on her back, looking up at her ceiling. Everyone was going to bother her with questions when they saw her, she knew. Scott would probably want to get back together, and Allison wasn't sure she was ready for that yet, or if she ever would be. She was planning to be too busy to even think about dating. She had sent an email to Coach Finstock last week, asking him to give her special consideration for the track tryouts. She was also going to try to find a job. It would be exhausting, but at least she wouldn't have to think of a lie to tell Scott when he wanted to spend time with her. 

She wanted to be done with hunting, but she knew that if another situation arose like the ones from the previous school year, she was going to have to intervene. 

Making new friends wouldn't be very easy this time around, either. Lydia probably hated her entire family - and she could join the club that Allison was pretty sure had formed in her absence. 

She sat up, then climbed off of her bed and laid down to start doing sit-ups as she muttered to herself. "No more werewolves. Lydia's out of the question. Greenberg was too creepy last year, and I'm pretty sure I saw him picking his nose in history." Up. "I need to talk to someone." Down. "I'm kind of screwed." Up. "Whatever, I don't need them." Down. 

She got to her feet and picked up her suitcase, setting it on her bed. So much for going to sleep. She opened it and started putting her clothes away. Maybe she could talk her dad into sending her to boarding school, instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone curious, this is the song that Peter set as Stiles' ringtone on Derek's phone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HI_xFQWiYU


	4. Where the Wild Things Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter frowned down at the red shirt he had put on. "I look like I'm trying too hard to hold onto my youth, wearing this monstrosity."

By Saturday, Allison was starting to feel comfortable in Beacon Hills. She wasn't sure she had been as welcome before, but she had a feeling it was because she hadn't been trying as hard to get to know other people. She hadn't really bothered trying to meet anyone on her own when she first moved to town. Scott gave her a pen, and then Lydia complimented her outfit and introduced her to Jackson. Through them, she had met Danny, Stiles, Erica, Boyd and Isaac. Even Derek, who had the social skills of a used kleenex, had introduced himself as a friend of Scott's and given her a ride home. Sure, he had lied about being friends with Scott, but at least he hadn't left her stranded and feeling like an idiot for very long. 

One more thing to add to her list of reasons why dating Scott again was a bad idea. 

So far, she had been invited to two parties that were being held that night, and she was considering going to one. The second invite had been from a guy who looked more interested in her bra size than the rest of her, and she had to practically snap her fingers in his face to get him to redirect his attention to the to-go bag she was holding out to him. 

She finished sweeping the floor and untied her apron, hanging it up in the back room before she went to sign herself out. Her manager stopped her with a hand on her wrist. He looked apologetic and let go a few seconds later. 

"Wait a minute, Allison. We got an order for delivery. I wouldn't normally authorize that, but they agreed to let me charge them fifty bucks for the delivery fee. It's over at the high school. They said they'd be in the library. If you run it, I'll give you an extra hour's pay. I figured, since you were leaving anyway, it's not going to cut too much into your plans?" 

Allison nodded. "Yeah, I can run it over. Just, you know. Did they say who it was for?" She checked the time on her cell phone and signed herself out of her shift, including the extra hour that she had been promised. 

"Does that matter?" Kenneth gave her a concerned look. 

Allison didn't have the heart to tell her boss that he looked like Chris Hansen's wet dream when he made that face. "I guess not, I just wondered." She walked back to the front of the diner to start boxing up food and drinks. "I know some teachers that are really picky." She lied. "I'd just rather not see them on a Saturday." For the last couple of days, all she had heard Scott and his friends talking about was some big deal meeting they were having on Saturday, at the school. She had hoped that it would mean they were too busy to go anywhere near the diner, but it looked like she was going to have to deal with seeing them, anyway. 

"I understand. I hated school too, when I had to go. I've been working here since I was a sophomore. I couldn't do much back then, just run the register and bus tables." 

"Hmm." Allison faked a smile, grabbing the cardboard box she had packed everything into. "I should get going. Don't want the food to get cold." 

"Of course." Kenneth darted around the counter to open the door for her. "Do you want me to get your car door open, too?" 

"No, I've got it." Allison called over her shoulder. She had a little trouble maneuvering through the gravel in the parking lot, but there was no way she was going back into the diner if she did slip and fall; Kenneth could just make everything over again and deliver it himself. If she had to fake tears, she'd do it. Sometimes, she was grateful for misogynistic jerks. They saw women as the weaker sex and expected them to cry over everything. 

Maybe it wouldn't be _that_ hard to make herself burst into tears. 

*****

Buffy watched as a car pulled up in front of the school building. She knew that the order was a large one, so she walked over to help the girl get the food into the library. "Hi. I'm sorry if this caused you any trouble. It just doesn't feel like a real meeting without food." She smiled. 

"Okay." Allison grabbed a container of drinks. "We'll have to come back for the others." She gestured to the other drink carriers in the back seat of her car. 

"That's not a problem." Buffy tilted her head as she leaned forward to look into Allison's car. "Is that a crossbow?" 

"Um." Allison looked nervous. "Yeah. But I'm just holding it. For a friend." 

Buffy laughed. "If you say so." She made her way toward the entrance, holding the door open for Allison. "I feel bad about this being such short notice. I just wasn't thinking about food until I realized that the nearest doughnut place is about twenty miles from here, and I don't drive." 

"You... you don't have to talk to me." Allison set the drinks down on one of the tables. "I don't mean that how it sounded. I just mean that you're not obligated to say anything. I know who you are, Miss Summers. I don't need counseling. I'm pretty well-adjusted." 

Buffy shrugged. "I'm off the clock, anyway. I wasn't looking for you to tell me about your nightmares or any possible daddy issues. Not that you have daddy issues. I was just giving an example." She followed Allison back outside to get the rest of the drinks. "Where did you get that crossbow, though? Or, um... where did your friend get it?" 

Allison handed the drink carriers to Buffy, then shut her car door again and walked over to the entrance to open the door for her. She used the distraction of being busy to try to think of how to answer. "Okay, it's mine. I don't know where it came from. My dad got it for me. I'm just really interested in archery." 

"I don't judge." Buffy remarked, turning to face Allison. She moved one leg forward, keeping the door open by pressing her toes against it, then glanced down at the drinks she was holding. "Okay. I was going to give you a tip now, but I'm a little preoccupied. I can either put the money in your locker or you can take one of these for a sec?" She wrinkled her nose. "I mean, the only other choice is for you to get the money out, yourself. That's not going to happen." 

"Okay. Just let me..." Allison blurted, grabbing one of the carriers. "I really don't want option three." 

Buffy laughed and got twenty dollars out of her pocket, handing it to Allison. She took the drinks back from her and stepped back into the building. 

Allison saw what was about to happen and tried to warn the counselor, but only got as far as, "Oh, look-" before Miss Summers bumped into Peter Hale. 

Buffy brought her arms up defensively as she twisted around, forgetting about the drinks she was holding. She ended up splashing one of them on Peter's shirt. 

And then it got worse. 

When she dropped the drinks to prevent the liquid from soaking her as well, one of the cups practically exploded, drenching her jeans from her knees to her ankles. She gasped, looking down in horror. 

Peter stared at Buffy. "I came to see if you needed help." He remarked dryly. "I'm Peter Hale. Derek's uncle." 

Allison stared at them, wide-eyed. "I might have a change of clothes in my gym locker?" She offered. 

"No." Buffy looked over her shoulder at Allison. "Thanks, I mean. But I have something in my office." She looked back at Peter. "You'd be surprised how often this kind of thing happens to me. Unfortunately, I don't have anything that would fit you." She smiled faintly. "I really am sorry." Her apologetic tone changed to one of mild irritation. "You probably shouldn't have snuck up on me like that. You're lucky that all that you got was a wet t-shirt." She pursed her lips, glancing down at his chest before she resumed eye contact. "I think I'm pretty lucky too, actually." 

Allison decided that was the perfect moment to get as far away from the school as possible. 

"You keep a change of clothes here?" Peter picked up the drink carriers and threw them into a nearby trash can. "Do you get soiled often in your office, talking to the students?" 

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Hello? I'm a vampire slayer. That term is kind of misleading, though. There are werewolves in this school, in case you forgot somehow, and I have to be prepared for any situation where things might go wrong." 

Peter's eye color changed to yellow as he smiled. "I didn't forget." 

"Well, okay." Buffy murmured. She gestured toward her office. "I'm gonna go change. I think there might be a shirt your size in the school store, by the cafeteria? It would mean breaking in, since I don't have a key for it." 

"Would you like me to wait for you so that you can get a better look?" 

"Nope, I'm good." Buffy called over her shoulder. 

"Really, it's no trouble!" Peter chuckled when he saw the way Buffy was blushing. 

Stiles walked out of the library and stopped in the hall, squinting at the mess on the floor. He took in Peter's soaked shirt, then turned slightly to look at where Buffy was just disappearing into her office. "I might regret asking, but what is this?" He gestured toward Peter, then toward the counselor's office. 

"It was called flirting about two decades ago." Peter answered. "I don't know what you children refer to it as these days, with how old I am and the fact that I was catatonic for awhile." 

"Allegedly. Or, more to the point, not at all." Stiles corrected. "You can't be catatonic and kill your own flesh and blood." 

"I don't suppose you'd be willing to accompany me to get a different shirt?" Peter grimaced as he pulled the wet material away from his skin. "I was told that I could steal one for myself." 

Stiles opened and closed his mouth. "Uh... yeah." He led Peter toward the cafeteria. "But you're not stealing it. I know you're not broke. You can leave money on the counter." 

"I certainly didn't expect that the day would come when someone so adept at lying to people he cares about would be concerned about theft. Didn't you also steal a prisoner transport van? That was you, wasn't it?" 

"Shut up. That was to keep Jackson from killing people. Your need for a t-shirt that doesn't smell like root beer isn't exactly what anyone would call a life or death situation." Stiles turned around to walk backwards in front of Peter as he eyed him. "Are you interested in her?" 

"Who?" Peter kept his expression blank, even though he wanted to laugh at the way that Stiles was concerned for his older friend. He had a soft spot for the teen who reminded him a lot of himself, at that age. 

"You know who." Stiles retorted. "I heard you two talking. Are you really interested in her, or are you just screwing with her, the way you do with everyone else?" 

"I don't _screw_ with anyone, Stiles. I'm disappointed that you see me that way." Peter grinned. 

"Oh my god." Stiles put his hand over his eyes and shook his head, turning back around before he lowered his hand and kept walking. "I just don't want her to get hurt. I like her being here. People..." He frowned, glancing over at Peter. "People don't usually stay here if they don't have to. You've noticed that. Laura and Derek left for a few years, too." 

"They were running for their lives." Peter scowled. "What are you getting at?" 

"She's a hunter. She might have a special name for it and some kind of extra skills that go along with it, but that's the basic idea." Stiles turned right to walk down a different hallway, toward the cafeteria. "They don't stick around for very long. Allison has lived in at least twenty different states." 

"Are you trying to convince me to get involved with your guidance counselor? It doesn't sound as though you are, since you're giving me a very valid reason to avoid being left behind when she moves on, like you said she inevitably will." 

"No." Stiles stopped walking, lost in thought for a moment as he tried to make sure that what he was about to say made sense to Peter. "She's told me some things that she probably shouldn't have, as a guidance counselor. But as my friend? Well, the details are kind of vague, but I know how to hear what people don't say. Most of the time, anyway. If you're screwing with her, and holy god, I mean that figuratively, _shut up_ \- she's going to leave. I don't want her to. Okay?" 

Peter nodded. "I understand." 

Stiles looked relieved and started walking again. "Thank you."

"You've barely known her a week. She must have made a real impression on you." Peter commented as they approached the campus bookstore. 

Stiles leaned back against the wall, next to the door. "Nobody else gets what I'm saying. I have other people that I can talk to, but... Scott has this Allison filter in his brain that kind of drowns me out. Lydia and Danny, well, they're good friends of mine, too. It's just that they barely paid attention to me until Jackson was gone. I know I just became his replacement. They won't say it because it's rude, but there it is. You? I don't care what you think of me, so that's the only reason we're even having this conversation right now. And who would you even tell? Nobody wants to listen to you." 

Peter chuckled. "I suppose you've got me there." He tried the doorknob, smirking when it opened without him needing to use any force. "They didn't even bother locking up. Are you sure I have to pay for a different shirt?" 

"Yes." Stiles followed Peter into the store, looking through one of the displays. 

"Please continue with what you were saying." 

Stiles stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth. "Fine. I guess I'm just grateful that I can talk to her about whatever I want. I don't have to hide anything. Miss Morrell encouraged me to talk, too. But she always spouted famous quotes at me, from Winston Churchill or Shakespeare, depending on what we were talking about." He smiled crookedly. "The other day, I was talking to Bu- Miss Summers about how it's kind of hard for me to deal with all of this and not tell my dad. She called me Veronica Mars." 

"You're pleased that she referred to you as a female alien?" Peter unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it. 

"What... no? It's a tv show. The girl's dad is a private investigator that used to be the Sheriff of their town, and she... nevermind. You're going to start watching it, and you're going to love it." Stiles insisted. "The point is, Buffy - uh, yeah. I'm gonna go ahead and call her that, since it's Saturday and not school hours. She doesn't try to put things in a way to make it sound like she's some kind of super genius. It's not that she's stupid, though. Maybe I'm not explaining this right. Believe it or not, words don't always come that easily to me." 

"Shocking." Peter frowned down at the red shirt he had put on. "I look like I'm trying too hard to hold onto my youth, wearing this monstrosity." 

Stiles pursed his lips. "They have it in gray." 

*****

"I just want to make sure we're all able to come to an understanding." Giles cleared his throat as Stiles and Peter walked back into the library. 

"I saved you a seat!" Scott waved Stiles over. "Right here, between me and Derek!" He beamed at his friend, then looked past him and nodded to Peter. 

Peter rolled his eyes as he took a seat beside Buffy, deliberately nudging her foot with his own. It was beyond juvenile, but at least he wasn't behaving like Scott, who might as well be holding a sign. _Stiles + Derek forever_ or some such nonsense. 

Buffy smiled as she glanced at Peter. "Your shirt is cute." 

"Would you like to borrow it? Maybe tomorrow?" Peter kept his voice down, not wanting to interrupt Giles. 

Derek glared at Peter. 

Scott put his hands over his ears and slumped forward in his seat. 

"I'd kind of like to get to know you a little better before you ask me that sort of thing." Buffy hoped she wasn't blushing, but she knew that it was a lost cause. 

"I could take you out for a drink?" Peter offered, winking. 

Robin slammed his hand down on the table, looking back and forth between Buffy and Peter. "If you don't mind, the rest of us are trying to make sure we agree about our goals, so that we don't overstep any boundaries." 

Buffy's amused smile, which had been directed at Peter, became almost feral as she looked back at Robin. "And if I decide I want to hold an entirely different conversation and get the Cliff's Notes version after? Are you going to try to get me kicked out of here, too?" 

Giles pulled his glasses off and started polishing them, keeping his head down. 

The rest of the small crowd was silent, watching the principal and the counselor glare at one another. 

Buffy spoke first. "Giles? You were in the middle of something that sounded important. Summarize it for me?" She looked over at her Watcher. "Summer-ize. Get it?" 

"Yes, yes. Clever." Giles muttered, putting his glasses back on. "Well. We've so far agreed to contact each other if a potential threat presents itself. I believe - " 

"Okay, so it's one of those. Your people can call my people, yadda yadda." Buffy interrupted. "It's a nice day. Couldn't we just go outside?" 

"I thought this was something you wanted to do? Weren't you the one that suggested it?" Giles frowned. 

"Me? No." Buffy shrugged one shoulder.

"It was my idea." Lydia explained. "I just wanted to make sure we could trust Miss Summers. And the rest of you." 

"I'll see you in my office on Monday, Miss Martin. You as well, Miss Summers." Robin stood up. "If you'll all excuse me." Without waiting for a response, he left the room. 

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Tell me again why I agreed to go back to work for him." 

"It was imperative that you be here." Giles reminded her. "You could have sent someone else, as I told you. You chose not to." 

Scott raised his hand nervously. "I'm not sure I understand." 

Stiles grabbed Scott's arm and yanked it down. "It's not school hours, dude." 

"Giles is responsible for making sure that I know what I'm facing when things get bad. There used to be a lot more guys like him, but they're all dead now." Buffy pouted. "I really wanted that root beer." 

"Please focus." Giles didn't even look up from the book he had suddenly become engrossed in. 

"Yeah, okay." Buffy stretched her arms out in front of her, palms flat on the table. "It's the job of a Watcher to write down everything, so that later generations of Slayers and Watchers have a record of stuff. I had a different Watcher before I met Giles. His name was Merrick." 

Stiles sat up straight. "That's my - uh, nevermind." He settled back in his chair, staring off into space as his mind wandered. 

Buffy smiled and nodded. "I know. Anyway, we pretty much wiped Sunnydale off the map, after I'd been there for seven years. The problem is that when you close one hellmouth, another one opens up. It kind of has to. If there wasn't a balance... well, I don't know what would happen, exactly. Something not good." 

Lydia stared at Buffy. "This is our guidance counselor?" 

"Can you explain why evil exists in the world?" Buffy asked. 

"Point taken." Lydia nodded. "So our town is the new mouth of hell?" 

"That explains a lot." Danny interjected. 

"Yes. And since I'm a Slayer, it's my job to make sure that Hell doesn't... doesn't... um..." Buffy frowned. 

"Puke." Stiles supplied. 

Buffy pointed to Stiles and nodded. "Yeah." 

Stiles grinned. "I'm awesome. Okay, but where does the principal fit into this? Is he a Watcher?" 

"He's a dou-" 

"Buffy." Giles scowled. 

"Oh god, Giles. He is and you know it." Buffy rolled her eyes. "His mom was a Slayer, and her Watcher ended up raising him and trained him how to recognize and slay vampires and demons. Somehow, he thinks that gives him the right to act like he knows more than I do."

"Did something happen before?" Danny looked from Giles to Buffy. "I don't mean to pry, it's just that if we're all going to be trying to get along, I think it's kind of important to know as many details as possible. Nobody wants any surprises." 

Buffy sighed. "Just before we closed the hellmouth in Sunnydale, there was something I felt we needed to do. Nobody else agreed with me, and despite the fact that they were all staying in my home, they told me that I had to leave if I wasn't going to listen. I left." She shook her head. "There wasn't anything else I could have done. Nobody wanted to listen to me." 

Peter caught Stiles' eye across the table and smiled, nodding to him to show that he understood what Stiles had been saying in the bookstore. 

"Were you right?" Lydia frowned. "Because if you were wrong, then there's not much point in being angry with him, even now." 

Buffy smirked as she looked up at Giles. "Was I right?" She asked him. 

"Yes." Giles murmured. 

"I don't care much about holding grudges in times of war or anything." Buffy continued. "But an apology during downtime would have been great to hear at any time over these last eight years." 

"Have you truly brought everyone here just to gloat, after all this time?!" Giles yelled suddenly. "There are bigger concerns than your wounded pride, or theirs." 

"Uh, with all due respect?" Stiles leaned forward in his seat. "If it's not that big of a deal that she gets an apology, then why can't you guys just give her one?" 

"Because I'm not here to make anyone feel -" Giles began, but Stiles interrupted him again. 

"My mom died for your stupid fucking cause, didn't she?" 

Scott leaned toward Stiles to put his hand on his friend's shoulder. 

"Didn't she?" Stiles asked again. "You guys made her learn to fight these things and something ended up killing her. Did you apologize to my dad when he lost his wife? Because I don't remember anybody apologizing to me for taking my mother away." He pushed his chair back and stood up, his fists clenched. "It's bullshit that you're not going to at least tell Buffy you're sorry that you threw her out of the house she doesn't even have anymore. That she has to go out and fight things until she either kills it, or it kills her. Do you..." He grabbed a sandwich and threw it at Giles. "Is this your idea of repayment? Fucking sandwiches?" 

"Hey." Buffy had gotten out of her chair and moved behind Stiles as he yelled at her Watcher. She turned the teen toward her and hugged him. "It's not that big of a deal. Not... my situation, anyway." She pulled back to make eye contact with him. "I'm sorry." 

Stiles stared back at Buffy, struggling to keep himself from sobbing even as his breath hitched in his throat. 

"Come on. Let's go get you a drink of water." Buffy guided Stiles out of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took longer than I expected. I'm considering changing my major (for the second time) and possibly changing colleges. I also got distracted by making a Peter Hale playlist on iTunes. 
> 
> I feel like I owe indecentdrawer on tumblr an apology for the end of this chapter.


	5. Bad Girls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Settle down, kid." Faith shook her head. "I don't even know who any of those people are, 'cept Buffy. And yeah, maybe it sucks that somebody has to go out and risk their own ass to protect everybody else's. But what's the alternative? No Slayers? Demons taking over every town they feel like? I've got enough going on. I'm not gonna kill your little blonde princess."

Spike sat down on the porch of the house that was for sale, across the street from the high school. It was shaded enough to protect him from immolation, but still gave him a decent view of Buffy as she walked out of the building, surrounded by a group of people. "There's my girl." He murmured, smiling to himself. "The center of attention, just like she deserves." 

He glanced down at the ring in his hand, considering whether or not he should put it on and make his presence known. If he did, he could be with her for the rest of her life and walk with her in the sunlight - another thing she deserved. 

But deep down, he knew that she really deserved to be able to make that decision for herself. 

He put the ring back into its box, then tucked it away in his jacket. 

Spike had spent the last seven years helping out where he was needed, but never around Buffy. He wanted to be strong enough on his own, which he had realized he had never been. He had gone from relying on his mother, to relying on Drusilla, to following Buffy around like a lost puppy (he was ignoring that brief period of time that he spent with Harmony, of course). 

He stood up, staring at the guy in the red t-shirt, who was smiling at Buffy as he said something to her. "Oh, come on!" He blurted. "It was bad enough when you were consortin' with the frat boy. What's this one? Gym teacher, I'll bet. He can't be good for you." Spike stared in disbelief as Buffy wrote something on the guy's hand, then walked away. He pulled a cigarette out of the pack he kept in the inner pocket of his coat. "Bollocks." 

*****

Allison was working the dinner rush on Sunday night. She had a total of six customers in the diner. Scott and Stiles were two of them. She hated the way that Scott was staring at her, but she knew he was a regular at the diner. Kicking him out would only make her look bad. At least she had control over some things. "I'm cutting you off." She told Stiles. "No more coffee." 

"What?" Stiles stared up at her. "You can't do that. I need it." He whined. "Allison!" 

"Stiles, you've had four cups. I'm pretty sure that if you have even another drop of caffeine, you could qualify as a deadly weapon. Your dad will arrest me for contributing to the delinquency of a minor." 

"You're a minor." Stiles retorted, making it sound like an insult. "I'm paying you for it, it's not like I'm getting it for free." 

"Refills don't cost extra. You know that." Allison looked smug, then sighed. "Fine. You get one more chance to convince me. If you can't, that's it." 

Stiles glanced over at Scott, then looked back at Allison. "Coffee or death." 

Allison rolled her eyes and walked away from the table. 

"You just chose death!" Stiles yelled after her. "You're suicidal. I'm telling Scott's mom!" 

Scott put his head down on the table. "Why did I agree to bring you here?" 

"Because I make you look good in comparison, buddy." Stiles grinned. "You need me so that you don't look quite as pathetic." 

"I'm not pathetic." Scott flicked his straw wrapper at Stiles. 

"Look around you. It's Sunday. This place is dead. Everyone else we know is having a meal with their family or pack or whatever. The only people in here, other than us, are truckers. You're only here to stare at Allison until she gives in to those sad eyes of yours." He leaned back in his seat, distracted by the sight of the woman that had just walked into the diner. She was wearing tight black jeans and a black halter top. "She's not from around here." He glanced at Scott. "You think that means I have a chance?" 

Scott laughed. "No, not really." 

"Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm going over there." Stiles got up and slid into the other side of the booth, where the newcomer was sitting. "Hey." He grinned. "I'm Stiles. And you are?" 

The brunette gave him a once-over. "Not going back to jail for the likes of you." She looked back down at her menu, then waved Allison over. "Give me two orders of your cheese fries and a burger." 

"Okay." Allison wrote the order down on her notepad. "Do you want me to get rid of him?" She gestured to Stiles. 

"Nah, he can stick around. 'Sides, if he gets too handsy, I'll just break his fingers." 

Allison smiled. "Okay." She repeated, walking back behind the counter. 

"Wha- you..." Stiles stammered. "I'm not allowed to say hello?" 

"I didn't come here to get hit on by Opie." 

"I'm not-" 

"The son of the Sheriff? You're a lisp and a fishing pole short of the nickname, maybe. Doesn't mean you're my type. If I even have a type. I'm pretty flexible. In a few ways." She snorted. "Name's Faith. I know who you are. If B's smart, she already warned you that I might show and that you should stay as far from me as possible." 

"She's not my mother." Stiles shrugged. 

"No, but I bet yours was better than mine." Faith realized she was still holding her menu, so she set it aside. "Look, kid. I'm sure you got one look at the leather and decided it meant I was into whatever kind of kinky shit you've never tried, but always wanted to. But I'm not anybody's personal servant like that, got it? You oughta go back to your seat, finish your food, and then go home and jerk off like all the other kids your age that don't have anything better to do." 

"I didn't mean anything by it." Stiles looked defensive. "Everybody ignores me, anyway. I... uh, yeah. Nevermind." He got up and walked over to Scott, muttering something to him before he went outside. 

"Damn it." Faith got up, calling to Allison over her shoulder. "I'll be right back in." She followed Stiles outside, yanking the driver's side door of the Jeep open. "I've got a real bad habit of misjudging guys, but I haven't lost my hearing. You did ask your friend if you had a chance with me, right?" 

"God. No. I mean, I _did_ , but that's not what I meant." Stiles turned a little in his seat to face her. "Anyway, I'm sorry about that. I don't really randomly hit on anybody. Not ever. You can ask around, if you feel like it. I had a crush on this girl, Lydia, for eight years. I barely talked to her. Just don't break my fingers, all right?" He smiled crookedly. "I can't exactly go home and jerk off, if you do." 

Faith snorted. "You're safe for now." She hesitated, looking down at her shoes before she glanced back up at Stiles. "How's B doing, anyway? She's good, right?" 

"I thought you said you talked to her?" Stiles looked confused. 

"No, what I said was that if she's smart, she warned you about me. I haven't talked to her in a few years, though. See, I've always had this idea that me and her aren't supposed to coexist. We just get in the way of each other all the time."

Stiles frowned, not sure if he should tell Faith what Buffy had said about her. He was more concerned about Faith's bad grammar than anything else, though. He just knew that he didn't want to tempt fate and piss off someone who had already threatened to break his fingers. When Derek threatened him, he didn't care - but Faith looked like she wasn't just saying things to get him to do what she wanted. 

"You're making a face like you just drank something nasty. What gives? She told you all about me, didn't she?" Faith crossed her arms. 

"Not everything, I don't think? Just that you had gotten into some trouble, but you were trying to make it right." 

"Huh." Faith shrugged. "Whatever. At least she didn't go around hanging up those wanted criminal posters. I wouldn't put it past her. Does she still act like she's a cop? I can't see her ever letting go of that." 

"I've got no problem with cops." Stiles smiled. 

"Yeah, of course not. No wonder you get along so well." 

"I thought you said you don't talk to her." 

"I don't. But I do talk to Giles and Robin. I heard all about yesterday's little blow-up in the library." 

"I wouldn't call that a blow-up." Stiles looked defensive, scowling at Faith. "If you're going to tell me that you're fine with the idea of people going out there and risking their lives every day, this conversation might as well be over right now. It's bad enough that I have to worry that my dad might not come home some day, but I lost my mom because of this shit and I don't want to lose anyone else over it. Not Scott, not his mom, not Lydia or Derek, and not your mortal enemy or however you think of her. If you came here to hurt her, you're not going to get the chance. I won't let you." 

"Settle down, kid." Faith shook her head. "I don't even know who any of those people are, 'cept Buffy. And yeah, maybe it sucks that somebody has to go out and risk their own ass to protect everybody else's. But what's the alternative? No Slayers? Demons taking over every town they feel like? I've got enough going on. I'm not gonna kill your little blonde princess." 

"She's not... it's not like that." 

"I know. It's never that simple with her." Faith muttered. "You'd better get home. It's getting late and I don't know what kind of shit is out here." 

Stiles nodded and pulled his door shut, then started his Jeep and drove away. 

*****

"Miss Martin, I'm glad you could make it." Robin gestured to the seat on the other side of his desk. 

"This is the class period that I always spend in here." Lydia's tone was frosty as she sat down, giving the principal a pointed look. "I didn't go out of my way for this." 

Robin looked amused. "Of course you didn't. Well, I wanted the opportunity to speak to you about what happened on Saturday. You've managed to give me the impression that you're not one to indulge in nonsense. I read over your file. Exceptional grades, never had any detentions or late assignments - until last year. You had an excused absence for hospitalization, but when you returned to school, you had some difficulty completing your work. There was an incident in your Economics class that got you sent to see the former guidance counselor, Miss..." 

"Morrell. I would expect a high school principal to keep track of the faculty." Lydia glowered. 

"Even the members of the faculty that were here before I was?" Robin steepled his fingers when Lydia nodded. "I see. Should I have also kept track of the staff members that were here when the school opened?" 

"There's really no need for you to act like a child. I may not normally speak to teachers this way, but considering this is in reference to what happened on Saturday, which was not school-related, I don't really see how you can punish me for it. Not without me saying something to a few of the right people." 

"I see." Robin repeated, taken aback by Lydia's attitude. 

"I think I know what you called me in here for." Lydia's eyebrow raised as she stared the principal down. "You thought I'd be on your side. Maybe you thought that I would help you out by being a spy for you." 

"I suppose I did." He admitted. 

"Of course you did." Lydia scoffed. "Did you get that idea by watching Glee? Nevermind, I'd rather not hear the answer to that. I'm not agreeing to help you. This was a waste of your time. Would you like to hear why, or can I leave now? I'd hate to shred what's left of your dignity, Principal Wood." 

Robin picked up his pen, pulling a folder from the top of a stack and opening it. "You can go." 

"Good." Lydia stood up, smiling. "One more thing. I'd like to be transferred to help out in the library during this period, instead of your office. We don't need to record a reason, I'm assuming. I think the school board would be concerned when I cited it as a conflict of interest. Don't you?" 

"Lydia." 

"Miss Martin." Lydia corrected. "You might be an authority figure over me for the next two years, but we're definitely not familiar enough with one another to be on a first-name basis. Are we, Robin?" 

"I can still give you detention." Robin countered. 

"You won't." Lydia walked out of the front office and went down the hall. She opened the door to Buffy's office, not bothering to knock. "He did what you said he was going to do." 

Buffy snorted. "I knew it. Not to sound like a raging man-hater or anything, but he seems to like keeping women where he can control them. It really sucks that he's good at it." 

"Should I expect more of the same from your Watcher?" Lydia moved aside to let Stiles into the room. "I got reassigned to the library." 

"Yay." Buffy smiled. "No, he's learned his lesson by now, I'm sure. If he does give you any trouble, just ask him if he's going to start laying eggs. He'll back off. Trust me." 

"I already do." Lydia nodded. "Stiles, I need your help with making sure Scott studies after school." 

"Your house?" Stiles asked. "I can bring something over." 

"Yes. He's not allowed to have any snacks until he can answer at least ten questions right, in a row." Lydia mused. "But fine. You know what to reward him with, anyway." She pulled the door shut as she stepped back into the hallway. 

Buffy gave Stiles a hopeful look. "Please tell me there's something new with you. I forgot how boring small towns can get." 

"Sort of? I met Faith last night." 

"You did what now?" Buffy blurted. "It would have been nice of her to mention that when she showed up at my apartment last night." 

"She did? So you guys are okay, then?" Stiles stopped looking through his backpack for his pencil and sighed in relief when Buffy handed him one. "Thank you." 

"Uh huh. Why wouldn't we be?" Buffy looked concerned. "What exactly did Faith tell you?" 

"She used the words _little blonde princess_ to describe you. And she called you a cop." Stiles hesitated for a moment. "Her grammar wasn't exactly the best, either. I know I don't have much room to talk about that kind of thing, but-" 

"She got her GED in prison, so she's not totally uneducated." Buffy remarked. "She just doesn't care." 

"It's really serious if she's here though, right?" Stiles started biting one of his fingernails. "I've been thinking about whether or not I should tell my dad. I don't want him in any more danger than usual, given his job and everything. I'd like it if he wasn't in any danger whatsoever, but he's good at what he does. I have to believe in that. I just don't know if he'd ever let me leave the house again if he knew about all of this." 

Buffy stood up and reached across the table, yanking Stiles' hand away from his mouth. "Don't do that." She handed him a pack of gum. "Work on your homework or something. You might not have time later, if Scott needs this much extra help with studying." 

"He's not dumb, he just lacks focus." Stiles murmured, putting a piece of gum into his mouth. "Thanks." 

"I squeaked by when I was in high school. It would have been nice if I had all this extra time to work on homework. Unfortunately, I had to ditch a lot. Demons don't care what time of day it is when they're scaring the townsfolk." 

Spike opened the door and leaned in. "That's because we have more people to mess with while the sun's up." 

"Get in here and shut the door before Principal Wood sees you and stabs you with a toothpick." Buffy smiled. "Stiles, this is Spike. He's a vampire, but he's harmless." 

Spike closed the door and nodded to Stiles. "Pleasure to meet you." He dragged Buffy's other chair a few inches away from the one Stiles was sitting in, then sprawled in it. "It's been a long time." 

Stiles gaped at Spike. "You don't look like a vampire." 

Spike's face contorted into the bumpy version that all vampires had. "Better?" 

"I'm really not happy that you're between me and the door." Stiles blurted. 

Spike laughed as his face regained the more human features. "I like this one." He looked over at Buffy. "You know who he reminds me of?" 

Buffy smiled innocently. "I don't have the first clue." 

"Right down to the freckles." Spike gestured to his own face. "Relative of yours?" 

"Nope." Buffy watched Stiles react to Spike as she tried not to burst out laughing. "Stiles, I'm serious. He really is harmless. He'll flirt with anyone, mostly just to mess with them if he's not interested or if he knows they're not interested in him." 

"Don't give away all my secrets." Spike gave Buffy a fond smile, then held up his hand to wiggle his fingers at her, showing off the ring with the Gem of Amara. "Looky what I found." 

"I told Angel to hide that from you." 

"Sure, you did. When I was evil and soulless." Spike looked back at Stiles. "I was." He said proudly. "Took out two Slayers all on my own. Then I met this one and ended up lost on her. She ruined me." 

"You're really... weird." Stiles studied Spike. "Can you... is it twisted that I kind of want to know what your vampire thingies feel like?" His eyes widened. "Oh my god. Not thingies." He looked over at Buffy, horrified. "Help me!" 

Buffy laughed. "I never figured out what to call them, either. There wasn't much of a need to decide on a name for them. Mostly, it was 'vampire' and then there was a dust cloud." 

"But not Spike? Why not? No offense." Stiles leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he reached out slowly to touch the ridges on Spike's forehead. His fingers bumped against them and he yanked his hands back as though he had touched a hot stove. When he reached toward Spike the second time, he was even more cautious. 

Spike moved a little closer to Stiles, encouraging him. "I wondered that myself, quite a bit." He admitted. 

"At first, it was because he talked to me differently than the other vampires did." Buffy mused. "It wasn't that you were less dangerous." She glanced at Spike, tilting her head. "You were just kind of..." 

"Sexy?" Spike smiled. 

"There aren't enough containers in the world to hold that amount of no." Buffy shook her head. "It was like you were only being like that because you thought vampires had to." 

Stiles sat back in his seat and lowered his hands to his sides. 

"Well?" Buffy smiled. 

"It was like... stegosaurus face." Stiles shrugged. 

Buffy giggled when Spike yelled in indignation. "I like that description. Besides, it's more accurate than you'd ever want to admit. You're practically a dinosaur." 

"Is that what you meant when you said you liked older guys?" Stiles blurted. "Vampire guys? I thought it was just that one. Angel." 

"You told him about Angel." Spike shook his head as he looked at Buffy. "You mentioned Angel, but not me." 

"I was going to!" Buffy insisted. "Just later on. I don't want to tell everyone everything right away." 

"How long's school been in session, mate?" Spike asked Stiles. 

"A week." 

"Ha!" Spike pointed at Buffy. "Well, there's no point in me being around where I'm not wanted." He stood up and opened the door, but stayed where he was. "This'd be the point in time where you tell me not to leave." He gave Buffy a hopeful look. 

"Get your dramatic ass back in here." Buffy rolled her eyes. "Is that what you wanted?" 

"No, but I'll take it." Spike sat back down and kicked the door shut. "Who's the guy that had the red shirt on the other day, hmm?" 

"Oh my god." Stiles looked up at Buffy, smiling slowly. "He's your creeper." 

"My what now?" 

"Derek. He doesn't do it anymore, since Isaac told him to stop. But he used to stand at the other end of the lacrosse field, over by the woods, and just watch us. Mostly Scott, since he was trying to make sure Scott didn't wolf out in the middle of practice." 

"Oh." Buffy nodded. She shook her head as she looked back at Spike. "To answer your question, that was Peter. Derek's uncle. Who I am, in fact, interested in." 

"I should have guessed you'd move on." Spike muttered. "S'just my luck, innit? I finally get the ring and find you, and I'm too late." 

"Yeah, by a few hours." Stiles shrugged. "It's not like they've even had a date yet." 

"Why are you helping him?!" Buffy pouted. 

"Because maybe I don't want you to get involved with Peter. I'm serious about this. He's evil." Stiles argued. "He killed his own niece." 

Buffy decided not to tell Stiles that Spike had been responsible for killing his mom twice - once as a human, then again as a vampire. She was intrigued by the fact that Stiles had taken to Spike so quickly, the same way he had with her. "Sometimes, they can't help it." She said carefully. 

"No, this was premeditated." Stiles explained. "Look, I think he might be trying to redeem himself, and that's great. But why should you be the one that helps him get there?" 

"It's kind of what I do." Buffy said quietly. 

"Hold on, Slayer." Spike was agitated. "Nobody asked you to take anyone on like a project that needed sortin' out." 

"Well... " Buffy glanced toward her door, then her trash can, deliberately avoiding making eye contact with Spike and Stiles. "Stop being so judgy, you two. Angel didn't believe he could love anyone until he met me. Riley didn't ever bother questioning anything until I convinced him that he should. And then there's you." She sighed and looked over at Spike. "You know I helped you remember what humanity could be like." 

"Who's Riley?" Stiles asked Spike. 

"A real poofter." Spike muttered. 

"I don't... know what that means. Do you want a piece of gum?" Stiles offered. 

"Sure." Spike grinned and took a stick of gum from Stiles' outstretched hand. "Thanks." 

"What is happening right now?" Buffy folded her arms on her desk and put her head down on them. 

"I'm just trying to make sure you're safe." Stiles frowned. "It would suck if you started dating Peter and he hurt you. Or worse. I know you're used to being the one taking care of everyone else, but here's the thing: so am I. Eventually, we're just going to have to learn to take turns when it comes to each other, and you don't get to start any shit with me about how I'm younger than you. I don't pay attention to that, anyway. You'd be wasting your breath." 

"I told Giles that same thing, once." Buffy mused as she sat up again. "Only my version of this speech involved me punching him in the face so that he would be too unconscious to try to fight my battles for me." 

"Do you want me to punch you in the face?" Stiles laughed. 

"I'll pass." Buffy smiled. "Fine, okay? I won't go out with Peter until he goes through all twelve steps or whatever he has to do." 

Stiles tried not to feel guilty, since he had already given Peter permission - not that he had any right to, he knew - to date Buffy as long as he wasn't going to drive her away from Beacon Hills. The problem was that he had said that on Saturday. He had spent most of Sunday thinking about Derek and all of the issues that his crush had. Some of them were Peter's fault, and Stiles didn't want Peter to have the chance to hurt anyone else. That was his altruistic reason. His more selfish reason was that if Peter and Buffy didn't last very long, things would be even more awkward for a long time between him and Derek. Stiles didn't need any extra help in that department. Ideally, the four of them could go see a movie together someday. But again, that had been his way of thinking yesterday, before the vampire seated to his right showed up and made Buffy smile and laugh more in ten minutes than she had all last week.

"So you're free, then?" Spike asked Buffy. 

"It looks that way, I guess." Buffy shrugged at him. 

"We'll have dinner. If you want to. I should probably tell you this, as well. No need for you to be blindsided again." Spike stammered. "Unless you'd rather be surprised, but I recall that you don't." 

"Spit it out, Spike." Buffy looked exasperated. 

"Oz and Xander are going to be here in a couple of days. Said they have something for you, from Red." Spike leaned forward. "Kennedy is dead." 

"That happened in the sixties." Stiles interjected. 

Buffy started laughing as she wiped tears out of her eyes. "Stiles, go bother Lydia in the library. Please."


	6. Tabula Rasa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy shrugged. "War." She unlocked her door and took a step forward, but stayed in the way in case he decided to leave before she was done speaking. "That's what you want, isn't it?"

It took them another three days, but Buffy greeted her friends with a smile when she saw them on Thursday night. 

She had passed the time by going over Stiles' student record with Robin, showing him the small mountain of detention slips that were just from Adrian Harris. Despite the fact that she still entertained the idea of chaining Robin to a mauseoleum and leaving him there, she was grateful for the chance to have a real job again. She wasn't going to waste the opportunity by seeing how many pencils she could get stuck in her ceiling tiles. 

Not every day, anyway. 

(The answer was forty-seven.)

"You look happy." Xander smiled. "Of course, I can only see out of one eye, so I might be wrong. Oz?" 

"That does appear to be a smile." Oz nodded.

Buffy grabbed her coat and locked her apartment door behind her. "I was sort of thinking we could go for a walk. I miss those walks." 

"Sitting is better for this." Oz said gently. 

"He's right about that. But he usually is. It's Oz. He only speaks the truth." Xander chuckled. 

"Except that one time." Oz murmured cryptically. 

Xander exchanged smiles with Buffy. "And by mentioning it, you told the truth about it, thus negating the original lie." 

"Good for you, Oz." Buffy nodded. "You keep those lies from trying to trick you out of being honest." She stuck her hands in her back pockets, her smile fading as they crossed the street, stopping near a park bench. "Okay. I know that Kennedy died. Spike told me as much. Is Willow okay?" She sat down on the bench and smoothed her hands over her denim-clad knees, hating the way that so much of their lives had been about loss. In other parts of the world, people still died and their loved ones mourned them, but at least they had natural causes instead of something like _roasted by a dragon sneeze_. "Was it at least quick?" She rolled her eyes at herself. "Listen to me, saying things like that. Like it's any less of a loss..." 

Xander sat beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. "It was quick. But Willow was there when it happened. I guess losing a second girlfriend like that was too much for her." He turned more toward Buffy as she looked up at him. "She Memento'd herself." 

"Huh?" Buffy frowned. "You're using references that even I don't understand." 

"Okay. Stop me when something makes sense here. Vanilla Sky. Dark City. Paprika. Inception." Xander gave Buffy a hopeful look. "Anything?" 

"New memories. Same Willow." Oz interjected. "She just doesn't know she is." 

"And you just let her do that?" Buffy stood up, turning to face her friends. "Why didn't you stop her?" 

"You weren't there. You didn't see her." Xander looked defensive. "She needed it. Anyway, the gist is that she thinks she's someone else, and that she grew up differently. We'll check in with her from time to time, just to make sure that she's not in any danger that she can't get herself out of. But she's happier than she's ever been." 

"I didn't-" Buffy sighed. "That's good, I guess. Poor Willow. So, what's this new life of hers like? She always picked the same stuff when we played Anywhere But Here. Is she John Cusack's girlfriend now?" 

"Not so much." Oz's smile was fond. "But she did get married, in her revised history." 

"Well, at least tell me that it was to you." Buffy blurted. 

"No. Not me." 

Buffy looked over at Xander for more of an explanation. She hadn't seen Oz in a long time, but she knew better than to expect him to become verbose. 

"There were these other people that kinda happened to be around when Kennedy got attacked. Willow just sort of worked her magic on all of them when she mind-whammied herself." Xander reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a small cloth bag. "Before she did it, she told me to give this to you. She said you would know what to do with it when the time comes." 

Buffy took the bag from Xander, not bothering to look at the bag's contents. "Can I see her?" 

"It's probably best if you don't. She made allowances where she could, but she just wanted..." Xander looked uncomfortable. 

"She wanted a Buffy-free existence." Buffy muttered. "Okay. That's fair enough, I guess. It's not like... it's fine. Good for Willow. She went through magical witness protection to save herself." 

"Yeah-" Xander started to smile proudly at Buffy, glad that she understood, but she kept talking over him. 

"I mean, maybe I needed her help out here. I don't. But I could have. And she's managed to shut off all of her knowledge of magic, right? So what are we going to do when we need her help? And don't get me started on-" 

"Buffy." Oz interrupted her, standing up. "You got yourself started." 

Buffy sighed. "I did, didn't I?" 

"She's happy." Xander repeated. "Be happy for her." 

"Why is it so easy for you?" Buffy stared at the only best friend she had left and fought back the urge to hit something because this had happened with no warning. 

"It's not." Xander protested. "But I'm trying to be mature about it. You forget that Willow and I were best friends as far back as kindergarten, Buff. I want to call her at least fifteen times a day to talk to her, but she's gone. For all intents and purposes. The Willow-shaped person that's taken her place probably wouldn't talk to me if the apocalypse really did hit and we were the last people left in New York." 

"Xander." Oz's tone was a warning. 

"What? It's a big city. It's not like Buffy can just go there and find her right away or anything." 

"You would benefit from being more like me." Oz shook his head at Xander, then looked over at Buffy. "You can't go. We don't know what's going to happen. If she saw you, it might undo what she did." 

Buffy knew that she wouldn't be okay with Willow shutting herself off like this for a long time, but she was going to pretend she was fine until she actually got there. "Okay, blabbermouth." She teased Oz. "That's exceeded your quota of words for the day." 

*****

"You have no right to criticize my teaching methods!" 

Buffy looked up at Adrian Harris. It was Friday morning, before first period. "I'm not done with my first cup of coffee, so if you wouldn't mind coming back around, oh... never o'clock?" 

"I guess you think that you can get away with this kind of behavior." Instead of listening to her, the teacher sat down across from her, then leaned sideways to push the door shut. "You're not a member of the school board. I don't answer to you. And eventually, your looks will fade and people will only see you as the bratty woman-child that never bothered growing up." 

"Uh huh." Buffy rolled her eyes. "Just one second." She started the voice recorder on her phone and set it down on her desk. "Go on. You were calling me a brat, right? I'm sure the school board would love to hear about that." When he glared at her, she smiled. "Oh, now you're silent. I should make your students carry recorders around with them. It's kind of funny, isn't it? You're in here, yelling at me about how I'm not your boss... but you're not _my_ boss, either. My responsibility is to the teenagers that come in here every day, trying to figure out what to do with their lives. When a teacher... you... decides to add to the stress they're already under by making them feel worse about themselves, then your behavior is my concern. I don't care what you think you can get away with in your classroom, beyond the obvious wrongness of it. You're in my office now, so you're going to listen to me." She got up, moving quickly before he could stop her. She locked the door and leaned back against it. 

"What you're doing is classified as harassment." Adrian looked smug. 

"Sure, if there's proof. That's how you managed to get away with insulting Stiles for as long as you did, right? Get friendly with the other kids and encourage them to laugh at him, too." She tilted her head. "That way, none of them would dare rat you out to me or Principal Wood. You're safe because you're bullying them all into submission." 

"You're going to believe the words of that inattentive mouth-breathing -" 

"I'm going to stop you right there." Buffy scowled. "Because if you go any further, I might lose my temper." 

"What do you think the school board would have to say about a counselor that has made such a special case of the Stilinski kid, to the point that she's threatening a teacher for being mean to him? I know you were both here on Saturday. The janitor is a friend of mine." 

"This is what it's come down to." Buffy studied her shoes as she spoke to herself. She looked back up at the teacher. "Okay." 

"I'm sorry, but what are you agreeing to?" 

Buffy shrugged. "War." She unlocked her door and took a step forward, but stayed in the way in case he decided to leave before she was done speaking. "That's what you want, isn't it? You think you can treat me the same way you treat your students. That I'm going to fear you because you're, what? A foot taller than me? Forgive me for not trembling. I think it's only fair to warn you that I've taken on much worse than you. As threats go, you're nothing." She smiled as an idea occurred to her. It was too good to pass up. "Actually, I think I'm going to take you up on your offer." 

"What offer?" Adrian rolled his eyes at her. "I didn't offer you anything." 

"You didn't?" She asked innocently. "See, I heard it differently. You said I never grew up. Maybe I suddenly have the urge to take a science class. All day. It just so happens that I'm really rusty, so I could use all the extra help I can get." She grabbed her purse and cell phone, yanking the door open and twisting around to face him. "I just need to stop by the library to pick up some books, and I'll be there. On time and everything." Without waiting for his response, she called Robin's cell phone. "Hey. I'll be out of my office all day unless there's some sort of emergency. Adrian Harris just invited me to sit in on his classes and observe his teaching methods." 

*****

Faith sat in one of the library chairs, her shoe braced against the edge of the table in front of her as she feigned indifference to the reunion of Buffy and all of her friends. She didn't want to hate the blonde Slayer - she had never really wanted to hate her - but moments like this were what made her realize that she was always going to be the outsider. She regretted her thoughts a moment later, when Xander sat down beside her. "Figures that you'd be the first one to figure it out." She muttered. 

"Figure what out?" Xander smiled. "All I see, out of my one working eye, is a pretty brunette that looks like she could use someone to talk to." 

"I didn't want your sorry ass for more than twenty minutes when we did get together. What makes you think it's any different now?" Faith laughed derisively. "You still think you can fix me, after all this time." 

"I didn't think you needed to be fixed in the first place." Xander shrugged. "But if you would rather sit here and mope, I'll take my self-deprecating humor elsewhere." 

Faith grabbed Xander's arm. "Wait. I didn't mean that. I guess it's just old habits, ya know?" 

"Hold on, lady." Xander smiled. "If you're going to try to talk to me, it's going to be over dinner." 

"You can't be serious." Faith let go of Xander's arm. 

"I am serious. What's wrong with it? You get a free meal and everything. Where's the problem?" 

Faith stared at Xander. "I can't think of a reason to say no." She looked worried. "Shit." 

"And they say romance is dead." Xander grinned. "You might have fun. You never know." 

Buffy squealed, interrupting Faith before she could respond to Xander. 

Dawn set her suitcase down by the table and hugged her sister. "I can't believe that none of you asshats waited for me before you showed up here. I hate being the last one. I swear to god, you all do this on purpose." She stepped back from Buffy. "I'm staying with you while I'm here." 

"Fine, but why are you here? Not that I'm not glad to see you, Dawn. But Oz and Xander brought me a present from Willow, and Faith came here with Spike to tell me that Kennedy was dead." 

"Hey, I just didn't want to be left out." Dawn shrugged. "But I think now that I'm here, I'm going to use my vacation time as an actual vacation. So, what have I missed? Tell me everything." 

Buffy sat down on one of the tables. "There's a teacher here that decided to piss me off, so I spent the entire day in his classroom just to give some of it back. We can't both work here. One of us has to go." 

"Buffy, you've only worked here for two weeks. Don't you think that you should maybe cut the guy some slack?" Xander smiled at his friend. "He just isn't used to you." 

"No, Xander!" Buffy fumed. "Remember how Snyder treated me? This guy is worse. And you're not gonna like this part. His last name is Harris." Her lips twitched as she tried not to laugh. 

"I say we break both of his arms." Faith joked. "Tends to humble a guy." 

"I considered it." Buffy admitted. "But Robin can only do so much to keep me from getting fired." 

"Maybe we should all come work here." Dawn laughed. "We could force him to quit and consider a career change. Maybe fast food." 

"Ugh." Buffy wrinkled her nose. "That's too harsh. What time is it?" 

Dawn looked at her watch. "Four-thirty. Why?" 

Buffy stood up. "I have a date at seven. You rented a car, right?" 

"I didn't need to." Dawn corrected, dangling her keys in front of Buffy's face. "That's a thing that grown-ups do? They buy their own cars." 

"Shut up." Buffy grabbed Dawn's suitcase and started walking toward the doors. "Come on, you can help me figure out how I'm going to do my hair." 

*****

"You look nice tonight." Spike smiled warmly at Buffy. "That is, you look nice every night. And day. But mostly nights, since that's when I saw you more frequently, before Angel gave me my ring back." 

Buffy chuckled. "Spike, you don't have to worry about me taking a compliment the wrong way. I do speak your language, remember? Things haven't changed that much. As everyone's been reminding me lately, I'm still the same old Buffy." 

"Are not." Spike protested. "You haven't so much as threatened to hit me even once tonight." He grinned. 

"Okay, so I'm slightly different." Buffy nodded. "The point is..." She gave her dessert plate a wistful look. "I want seconds." 

"Food's better'n the company?" Spike guessed. 

"Not better." Buffy shook her head. "I wouldn't have agreed to dinner with you tonight if I thought I'd be bored." 

"So you were bored!" Spike scoffed. "I knew it." 

"No, that's not what I meant to say. Just tell me that you don't feel the same way as me. It's been... comfortable. The way that old friends are supposed to be comfortable with each other. You're giving me slightly more yay feelings than Xander, for what it's worth. But that's just barely." 

"I guess I can admit it, since you admitted it first." Spike waved the waiter over. "The lady would like another serving of her dessert." 

Buffy grinned. "I was starting to feel guilty. About you and me, not the dessert." 

"No need for that. Best to say what's on your mind, anyhow. 'Course, this means you can split the bill with me when the time comes." Spike laughed. 

Buffy rolled her eyes. "No wonder you ordered me a second dessert. Fine. I can afford it." She took a sip of her drink. "So... what now? Are you going to leave Sunnydale?" She made a face. "I really just did that, didn't I? Whatever. Are you going to stay or what?" 

"I believe I could be convinced." Spike mused. "After all, if that werewolf you've got your eye on causes you trouble, I'd like to be able to step in. Not that I have to, I know." 

"Permission to step in granted." Buffy smiled. "But I don't think it'll be a problem. I think Peter's kind of sweet." 

Spike snorted. "Says the girl with the bad track record. But all right. If you believe he is, then I suppose he has to be." 

"He sent me flowers the other day. The good ones. Not generic stuff. Red roses are kind of lame. I got a bunch of purple ones, though. And some other flowers. I don't know what they're called." 

"Aren't you concerned about your young friend tryin' to warn you off of seeing him?" Spike was genuinely concerned. He knew that Buffy didn't always listen to her friends. He had exploited that more than once. 

"I know how to be cautious." Buffy murmured. 

"There's a difference between cautious and emotionally closed off, as I've seen you. I'd wager that you don't know the difference." Spike frowned. "Looks like I'm going to need to be around to pick up the pieces. I'm just not sure if they'll be his or yours."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this is the longest I've gone between updates. 
> 
> In case you're wondering, Peter did NOT give Buffy a bouquet with wolfsbane in it. 
> 
> Yes, I referenced How I Met Your Mother in this chapter. I'm not going anywhere else with it, though. Willow is probably my least favorite character in BtVS. I would have actually rather watched Buffy be friends with Glory or Sunday.


	7. The Pack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At least a fake boyfriend was better than none at all. "It was sudden. One day, you're just kind of coasting through life and then you meet someone." He nodded. "But we're in your way, so..."

Stiles opened his front door when Buffy knocked on Saturday morning. "Hey." He smiled at her. "You can come on in. My dad's working a double. Third and first, so he'll be home sometime this afternoon. Probably with french fry breath, like he thinks I don't know what that smells like. Anyway..." He stepped back to let her in, then finally realized that Buffy wasn't alone on the porch. "Uh, hi?" 

"Stiles, this is Xander and Oz. And you already know Spike." Buffy introduced her friends to the teen. "If you don't mind me inviting them? I know. I should have asked." She looked over at Oz. "I'm mannerless." 

"Usually." Oz admitted. "But it's part of who you are." 

"Oh." Buffy looked embarrassed, not sure what to do with herself. At some point last Saturday, they had agreed to start having meetings every Saturday, and Stiles had volunteered his house for this one. 

"It's fine." Stiles said quickly. "Just hurry up and come in before my neighbor starts asking questions, please?" 

Buffy smiled apologetically at Stiles as she walked in, followed by her friends. "I like your house. It's really well-maintained for only having two guys living in it." She shook her head. "Well, I'm just all over the place today, I guess. Give me five minutes and I'll have insulted your dad and managed to break something." 

Stiles laughed. "Why are you nervous? Hold on. I have the solution for this." He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a bowl of popcorn. "Derek and Peter are the only ones that are going to be here today. Lydia and Danny are working with Scott on studying for a test on Monday. Isaac is usually wherever Scott is. Boyd had to work, and... I think that's everyone." 

Buffy sat down on the couch and ate a few kernels of popcorn. "That's why I'm nervous." She explained. "Because of... people who aren't here." 

"That's just her way of saying she doesn't want us to meet Peter." Xander told Stiles. "Even though she wouldn't shut up about him on the way over here." 

"You're a bad friend." Buffy muttered. There was a knock on the door a moment later, causing her to cover her face with both hands. "I really hope they didn't hear anything you were saying." 

Stiles opened the door again. He made eye contact with Derek right away, unable to prevent himself from smiling when he did. He had insisted on this gathering happening at his house because it meant Derek had to show up if he wanted to know anything, so Stiles had an excuse to see him. At the same time, they wouldn't be alone together, so Stiles could avoid talking to fill the silence if someone else did it for him. 

"Are you going to let us in the house?" Peter spoke up, rolling his eyes when Stiles and Derek didn't seem to hear him. He reached past Derek, pushing Stiles aside. 

"Okay, you don't get to do that." Stiles blurted, straightening his shirt. "Come in, then. There's popcorn. It's not for you." He glared at Peter. "You can go hunt squirrels if you get hungry." 

Derek smiled as Peter walked into the living room. "He's been griping at me for the past week about how he can't be like me and just show up at the school whenever he wants to. He really likes your friend." 

Spike had been listening to the conversation and couldn't resist meddling in it. He moved to stand beside Stiles and slung an arm around his shoulders, preventing Derek from getting into the house. "Name's Spike." He held his other hand out to Derek. "Vampire, but I'm not the bad sort. Might not sparkle in the sunlight, but you won't find me tearing people apart to get at their veins." 

Derek tensed up, scowling as he studied Spike. He looked back at Stiles. "And you two are together?" 

Stiles shook his head. "We're not -" 

"Official." Spike interjected. "What can I say? I got a real affinity for his type." He smirked. 

Stiles turned his head to give Spike a confused look, blinking at him. He bit his lip, then looked back at Derek as he leaned into Spike. The vampire had shown no interest in him until that second, so all he could do was hope his guess was right and that Spike was just acting like this to bother Derek. He wanted it to work, but he didn't think it would. At least a fake boyfriend was better than none at all. "It was sudden. One day, you're just kind of coasting through life and then you meet someone." He nodded. "But we're in your way, so..." He glanced at Spike. "We should move. H-honey." 

"Hmm? Oh, right." Spike grinned and guided Stiles to turn around, arm still slung over his shoulders as they made their way back into the living room. He snuck a glance at the teen and tried not to laugh at how nervous Stiles was. Releasing his hold, he sat down by Xander on the couch. 

"I'm getting something to drink!" Stiles nearly tripped over his own feet on the way into the kitchen, leaning his forehead against the fridge. He heard the front door close and wondered if Derek had even bothered staying. He got his answer a moment later when he felt a warm hand on the back of his neck. 

"Since when do you like vampires?" Derek let go, stepping back as Stiles turned around to face him. 

"I'm not allowed to like vampires?" Stiles shrugged. "I can like whoever I like." 

"Why are you so stupid?" Derek looked into Stiles' eyes. "You know how dangerous they are." 

"Excuse you? That vampire has never done anything to hurt me in the week I've known him. In the first week you were back here, my life was at risk at least four times." 

"None of those were my fault. It was all Peter." Derek was quiet for a minute. "But you know that already, so why are you acting like everything is different than how it is?" 

Stiles made a sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a frustrated sigh. "Why don't you tell me how you think everything really is, and I'll tell you if you're right." 

"You like me." Derek looked uncertain, even as he said the words. 

"Do you even - no. I'm not actually dating Spike, all right? But what difference does it make to you? Why do you care who I date?" Stiles shook his head slightly when Derek started to back away. "Nope." He grabbed the edges of the leather jacket that Derek always wore. "Why do you _care_?" 

"You know why I care." 

"Yeah, no? Because you haven't ever said it. Also, you called me stupid, so let's just... go with that. I'm stupid. Explain it to me." Stiles demanded. "Why does it matter to you who I date?" 

Derek crowded Stiles back against the fridge and kissed him. It was quick and harsh, mostly to get him to stop asking so many questions that he already knew the answers to. "You're not stupid. You know. I'm not good at saying why." 

Stiles brought his hand up to touch his lips, not sure how he felt about the fact that his first kiss had been so brief and had only served to make him be quiet. "That's not fair to me, Derek. I deserve to hear it." His tone was nearly pleading as he kept talking. "Don't you think I deserve to hear it?" 

"I think you deserve more than I can give you, Stiles." Derek nodded. "Maybe I shouldn't have come here today." 

"So... is that all?" Stiles shook his head and looked away. "Maybe you shouldn't have." He agreed finally. "I'll send you a text and let you know what you missed." 

"What do you want me to do? Whatever you decide, I'll respect it." 

"It can't work that way." Stiles was practically whispering, not trusting his voice to sound as certain if he spoke at a normal volume. "It's not about respecting me. Okay, so it is. But not... what do you really want? Do you want me?" 

"More than you know." Derek admitted. He closed his eyes, terrified that Stiles would reject him or laugh in his face. "I feel like I'm drowning when you're not around. Even before the pool. I don't like that I haven't seen you in a week. I don't like that for the past two Fridays, you weren't there. You're supposed to be there. Damn it, I've missed you." 

Stiles put his hands on Derek's shoulders, brushing his thumbs up and down over the sides of Derek's neck. "Can you open your eyes for me, please?" 

Derek shook his head, snorting because he felt like an idiot. Everything was on the table now, and Stiles could wreck him if he wanted to. 

"Okay." Stiles murmured. He leaned in and kissed Derek's mouth gently, then pulled away for a second before he repeated the gesture. "I'll be there next Friday. I swear. But you have to open your eyes because we're supposed to go talk about any creepy activity that's happened lately, and I don't mean you climbing through my window." 

Derek opened his eyes slowly. He relaxed when he made eye contact with Stiles, who looked every bit as overwhelmed as he felt. "I haven't climbed in through your window in more than a week." 

"I know." Stiles squeezed Derek's shoulders and kissed him a third time, lingering as his lips slid against Derek's. He pulled back a moment later. "It's kind of nicer if you reciprocate." He remarked. "Or so I've heard." 

"Sorry. I thought I was." Derek looked embarrassed. 

"We'll work on it later." Stiles nodded. He walked back into the living room and sat on the arm of the couch. 

"What happened to that drink you were getting?" Peter smirked. 

"I got it." Stiles shrugged. "Be quiet or I'll find a way to sneak wolfsbane into your Alpo." 

"We were talking about how packs work." Buffy explained, trying to distract Peter before he and Stiles could get into an argument and derail the conversation. "Oz has never been part of one." 

"I thought life was more dangerous for Omegas." Stiles looked at Oz. "How have you survived?" 

"I've had protection from at least half a dozen Slayers at any given point, for the last few years. I ended up going to Tibet to learn how to control my impulses. It was interesting." 

"How was it interesting?" Stiles asked, intrigued. "What did you do?" 

"He might write it down for you later, but Oz really isn't one for words." Xander shrugged. "So, packs. How do I join?" 

"God, Xander!" Buffy blurted. "You don't." 

"Why not?" Peter laced his fingers with Buffy's as he regarded Xander. "We're always looking to expand our pack, and I think Derek would benefit from having more people over the age of eighteen in it. Instead, he's chosen to recruit the Breakfast Club." 

"You don't like The Breakfast Club?" Buffy frowned, but her tone was teasing. "Okay, we're breaking up." 

"I hadn't realized we were official." Peter smiled at her. "I don't recall having such a conversation." 

"Do you want to go out on dates with me, exclusively?" Buffy lifted the hand that Peter was holding, pulling his own hand up with it. "That's kind of an indicator." 

"Yes." Peter nodded. "That does seem to be something that people do when they're dating. Right, Derek?" 

Derek scowled at Peter from where he was sitting on the floor, his fingers entangled with Stiles'. "I didn't give you permission to bring me into this." 

"I don't need your permission." Peter scoffed. "I can only assume that Stiles took it upon himself to finally do something. There are garden snails that move faster than you." 

"Were you friends with those snails?" Stiles grinned. "Did you talk to them while you were pulling a Voldemort on Lydia?" 

"Uh, guys?" Xander waved a hand to get everyone's attention. "Werewolf me?" 

"I'll give it thought." Derek murmured. "I'm not in as much of a hurry to expand the pack now that our biggest threat has been dealt with." 

"I realy hope you're all just discussing strategies for that online game that Stiles plays all the time." John spoke up from his position by the front door. He rolled his eyes when his son fell off the couch and landed in Derek Hale's lap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a short chapter, but the next one will make up for it.


	8. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And you're his guidance counselor?" John took a sip of coffee. "Thank you." He set the cup back down. "Let me get this straight. You're the one that's kept my son out of detention for the last two weeks and managed to get at least half of the previous ones taken off his record?" He studied her, one eyebrow raised. "I expected someone that was..." He gestured vaguely. 
> 
> "Warts and glasses that they stopped making in the nineteen-fifties?" Buffy guessed. "The female version of Richard Simmons?"

John prided himself on his ability to notice details that other people didn't. It was one of the things that had helped him get elected as Sheriff. He knew Renee wasn't just some average woman that he could pass on the street. She knew martial arts and could speak six languages. She also had a higher regard for her adoptive father than her biological parents, but she didn't hate them. 

She had an almost unhealthy fascination with mythical beings. 

John actually felt grateful sometimes that his wife had died just before the world went nuts over vampires with weird skin conditions. Stiles had once been involved in a group project with a girl that treated those characters like they were part of her religion, and she had fawned over Stiles' pale complexion; not that Stiles ever noticed. 

As John watched the way Stiles stared at Derek Hale and didn't seem to be in a hurry to get up from where he was sprawled across the older man (how old was Derek, again? John needed to go through his files as soon as possible), he realized that there were some details he had definitely missed about his own son. 

But there were other things that were more important right now. "Okay, am I supposed to take your silence as acknowledgement?" He frowned. "One more thing. Who are all of you? Stiles, what's going on?" 

"Well..." Stiles drew the word out, trying to give himself time to think of a lie. 

"Answers would be great right about now, so I don't have to ground you from everything." 

"Werewolves are real." Stiles said quickly. "And vampires. That's a vampire." He pointed at Spike, who lifted a hand in greeting. 

"Okay, I don't have time for this. I think it's time for you to say goodbye to everyone." 

"No." Stiles shook his head. "Dad, I didn't want it to be like this when I told you. If I _ever_ told you. But you should know." He suddenly came back to himself and realized where he was sitting, scrambling to get off of Derek without inadvertently elbowing him in the face. "We were having a sort of, uh, council meeting." He gestured to everyone on the couch. "Buffy is my guidance counselor at school, but she knows all about this. And she knew Grandpa." 

John froze, whatever words he had meant to say fading from his memory as he turned to look at the blonde woman. "You knew him?" 

Buffy nodded. "I think we might be better off discussing this as a smaller group." She suggested. "If that's okay?" 

"Yeah." John ran a hand over his face. "Stiles, how about you and Derek go see everybody else off, and then you can both come back in here and make me a pot of coffee. And I do mean both of you." He barely registered the front door opening as he gestured for Stiles' counselor to follow him into the kitchen. Once there, he sank into a chair. He didn't want to believe that Stiles was telling the truth, but he knew the faces his son made when he lied, thanks to years of practice. Every word that he had said was true. Or at the very least, Stiles did believe it. "Crap." 

Buffy had already started on making the pot of coffee for the Sheriff, trying to keep Stiles out of any trouble she might have gotten him into. "Do you take cream and sugar?" 

"What? Oh. Yeah, I think I need it today. I usually drink it black." John stammered. "Werewolves?" 

"Uh huh." Buffy started looking through the cabinets. "And vampires. Other things too, but we'll get to those later." She moved the coffee pot aside long enough to fill up a cup of coffee for John, then replaced it and carried the drink over to him. 

"And you're his guidance counselor?" John took a sip of coffee. "Thank you." He set the cup back down. "Let me get this straight. You're the one that's kept my son out of detention for the last two weeks and managed to get at least half of the previous ones taken off his record?" He studied her, one eyebrow raised. "I expected someone that was..." He gestured vaguely. 

"Warts and glasses that they stopped making in the nineteen-fifties?" Buffy guessed. "The female version of Richard Simmons?" 

John looked disgusted. "Not that last one. I just worked fourteen hours straight and came home to find out that my son is gay and he's some kind of American Harry Potter. Cut me some slack, would ya?" 

Buffy laughed. "Sorry. But you're wrong on both counts. Stiles isn't gay, he still likes girls. Valid lifestyle. He might have some magic talents, but there's a definite lack of a scar on his forehead." She heard the front door open and close, looking up at Stiles as he and Derek came into the kitchen. "Does your dad make you sleep in a closet?" 

John nearly spit out his coffee. "What exactly gave you that impression?" 

Buffy shrugged. "Hey, you're the one comparing him to Harry Potter." 

Stiles sat down at the table, giving his dad a confused look. "You compared me to Harry Potter?" 

"It was the most relevant thing I could think of." John looked defensive. "Who do you know that's a werewolf?" 

Stiles held his hands up, visibly counting on his fingers. "Scott, Boyd, Isaac, Peter and Derek. Oh yeah, and Oz. Erica was one, but then she got attacked." 

"I'm exhausted, so we're going to talk about this in more detail later on. Just you and me." John took another drink of his coffee, then set the cup back down. "Just give me the basics right now. We'll worry about proof later on. I don't know how I'd react to seeing a werewolf in my kitchen. I might end up too trigger happy." 

"Scott was bitten by Peter last January, only we didn't know it was Peter at the time. Scott hates being a werewolf. Seriously, that's all he talks about, other than Allison. We don't really talk that much anymore, actually. But we'll skip over that for now. Miss Summers is a Slayer. Mom was training to be one, but then she got pregnant with me and they couldn't use her for that anymore. Instead, Grandpa had to move away, remember? Well, it was to train her." Stiles pointed at Buffy. "And now she's here because our town is getting too dangerous and she wants to keep everyone safe." He looked back at his dad. "Like you do. Only, you can't fight demons." 

John mulled his son's words over for a moment, then looked at Derek. "What do you have to say about all of this?" 

"I don't really know, sir." Derek's eyes focused on Stiles and he relaxed. 

"Are you dating my son?" John leaned back in his chair. 

"Hey, it's still new." Stiles interjected. "We just talked about it today." 

"Yes, we're dating." Derek nodded. "I'm going to do my best to protect your son, sir." 

John snorted. "Enough with that sir crap. I appreciate that you're two seconds away from wetting your pants in terror, believe me. But I just want to make sure I'm not in the dark on anything else. Renee was the one that would've had you begging forgiveness for thinking about sneaking a cookie before dinner." He paled. "That wasn't a euphemism, so don't think that I meant it that way." 

"I know, s- I know. Your wife did spend time with my family a lot, when I was younger." Derek spoke quietly, his gaze on the table in front of him. 

"Yeah, I forgot about that. It makes more sense now. Not that it didn't before, but she never brought Stiles over there, and the first time I... when Renee was in the hospital, I had your mom keep an eye on him." 

"I remember." Derek smiled faintly. 

John studied Derek for a few minutes. He would have been lying if he said he didn't enjoy the way that his son's boyfriend was starting to squirm at the awkward silence. "It looks like you and I will need to sit down and have a different conversation later on." He stood up, sliding his empty cup in front of Stiles. "Dishes." 

Stiles nodded. "I know. Thank you, Dad." 

John snorted. "Your friends need to leave, and you're confined to the house for the rest of the weekend, but only because you invited a bunch of people over that I've never even seen before." He went upstairs without waiting for Stiles to say that he understood; he knew his son would only refuse to listen if there was some kind of emergency. Once he was in his bedroom, he started undressing, taking care to hang up his uniform so that it wouldn't get wrinkled. When he collapsed on his bed, he moved onto his side and stared at the empty space where Renee used to sleep. He could almost hear her laughter and it made him smile sadly. "I still miss you." He murmured, closing his eyes. "I wish you'd said something about all of this." 

*****

John woke up a few hours later, staring up at Stiles as he tried to understand what his son was saying. 

"I have to go to the hospital!" Stiles blurted. 

"What?" John sat up, wide awake. "Are you hurt? Did Derek attack you?" 

"No!" Stiles sat down and took a deep breath, trying to calm down. "Okay, don't be mad. I was listening to the scanner again. I know it's off limits. That's not the point right now. Buffy's mentor is in the hospital. Heart attack. They had to call the paramedics. I just need to be there, okay? I was going to leave a note, but I thought you'd like it more if I got permission." He gulped. "Dad, I can't - it was a heart attack, and I need to go. Because if..." He pressed his lips together, forcing the words back. "I would want someone there if I had to sit in the hospital by myself, just waiting for news." 

John nodded. "Go. Wait a minute." 

Stiles stopped in the doorway and turned to face his dad. "Yeah?" 

"Do you need money for food while you're there?" 

Stiles' nervous expression softened. "No, I've got it covered." 

"When did you grow up, kid?" John muttered. 

Stiles shrugged one shoulder. "I think it was around three o'clock on July ninth?" 

"So I was wrong. You're not that grown up. Smartass." John snorted. "Don't st- nevermind, you won't come home until you feel like it. Just call me and keep me updated." 

Stiles nodded and walked into the hall, pulling John's bedroom door closed. He made his way downstairs and out to the Jeep. The sun was setting as he backed out of the driveway and drove toward the hospital, blaring his radio and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel to distract himself from thinking about the possibility that it could have been his dad having the heart attack. Panic attacks were always the result of him worrying over the what-ifs. Nobody needed him to break down right now.

He parked in the hospital lot and made his way into the building, looking around for Buffy. He saw her at the front desk, talking to a nurse named Maia. Maia was in her fifties and had been working for the hospital since before his mom had been admitted. She used to sneak him peppermints and butterscotch candy. Or at least, he felt like it was a secret between the two of them when he was a kid. Now he knew that she gave those same treats to all of the kids that could use a little extra comfort. 

"They called me because I'm his emergency contact." Buffy mumbled, staring at Stiles. "I was already here. I just left for a minute to go outside and call everyone." She paused. "I didn't call you. Did I?" 

"No. I heard about it on the police scanner." Stiles explained. He paused. "Oh god, that's creepy. I'm sorry." 

"Only a little." Buffy unwrapped a peppermint and stuck it in her mouth. 

Stiles smiled over at Maia, who winked back at him. 

"I should probably sit down, right? I haven't had to do this in a long time. Not since my mom died. He's on the third floor." Buffy looked around. "But I don't see anyone else here yet." 

"Okay. The elevator's this way." Stiles pointed, then put his hand on Buffy's shoulder and guided her down the hall. "They'll be here." He pressed the up button and looked over at her. "I didn't even think before I showed up here." 

"I told you. It's fine." Buffy got into the elevator when the doors opened. She was quiet as she watched Stiles press the button for the third floor, but started rambling when the doors closed. "Waiting bothers me the most. Not just here, but it's the worst when you're in a hospital. I also don't like waiting for food or vacations." She sighed. "I need Giles to be okay. Is that selfish? It's just that if he's not okay, they're going to ask me to make the big decisions, and Dawn yelled at me last time because I made all of the decisions as fast as I could, because it's not like my mom could have come back, you know? And what else was I gonna do, let her sit there getting all gross while I studied the symbolic differences between oak and cherry wood? It wasn't even like it was her anymore, it was just..." She looked up at Stiles, her eyes red with unshed tears. "But he made me his emergency contact. I'm the one that's supposed to know what to do if he... if he..." 

Stiles hugged Buffy, then pulled her with him to stop the doors from closing again before they could leave the elevator. He wanted to tell her that Giles would be fine, because the doctors at this hospital actually cared about their patients. But he knew that if something did happen to Giles, anything he had said would only make him feel guilty afterward. "He trusts you to make the right decisions, but that just means that any decisions you make will be the right ones. When the time comes." 

"How come you get to say the right thing when I can barely figure out the English language?" Buffy stepped back from Stiles. "Thank you." 

"Buffy!" Dawn lunged at her sister. "Is Giles okay? He's okay, right? It was totally a false alarm, wasn't it? That happens sometimes." 

"He's Giles, not Redd Foxx." Buffy frowned. "Which is a joke made in really horrible taste and I'm sorry I said it." 

"You're not thinking clearly right now." Stiles interjected. "How about if you two come sit down and I"ll go get you something to drink?" 

"No caffeine for Buffy." Dawn glanced at her sister. "She'll be driving the nurses insane." 

"No caffeine for Dawn. She'll drive me insane." Buffy retorted. 

Stiles wondered why he had ever wanted a sibling. "Water?"

"Yes, please." Dawn nodded. 

*****

The next two hours passed by so slowly that Buffy felt like time was moving in reverse. The doctor had already explained Giles' condition to her, so she had spent most of the time just waiting for him to be awake enough that she could talk to him about what he wanted to do. It frustrated her to see someone growing older; so much of her life had been spent around vampires that retained their youthful appearance and agility, even though they were more than five times older than she was. 

"Hello, Buffy." Giles murmured weakly, smiling at his Slayer. "I suspect you'll be wanting to make a joke or two at my expense." 

"No, Giles." Buffy shook her head as she walked further into the room and took his hand. She stared down at the dark blue veins for a moment, wondering how long they had been that way. "I don't want you to live alone. It's too dangerous for you now, and not just because of the obvious, demony reasons." 

"Yes, I agree." Giles let go of Buffy's hand and struggled to sit up straighter in the hospital bed. "That's why I feel it's best to tell you, rather than waiting as I've done in the past. I'll be returning to England as soon as the doctors here allow me to leave. I've already spoken to a care facility about hiring a nurse, just as a precaution." 

Buffy pressed her lips together and nodded slowly. "I guess that's the right thing to do, isn't it? I'll call you sometimes, though. I think I've gotten that pesky time zone difference figured out, finally. And if I don't, then you can just consider it as a way of me keeping you on your toes." She lowered her head and sighed shakily. "It's going to suck without you here. But I'm supposed to be old enough now to deal with that kind of thing. You'd think I'd accept that already." 

"Well, you've never been one to conform to all of the societal standards." Giles chuckled.

Buffy pretended not to notice the way that her Watcher grimaced, as though he had a cracked rib - and she definitely knew what kind of face a person made when they had one. "I like the ones that benefit me." She said airily. "Is it true that New York City has a high crime rate? Maybe they'll overlook me punching Willow a couple of times. Lightly." 

"Why on earth would you want to do that? She certainly won't remember you. Or, if the theory holds, she will and you'll shock the person that she's allowed herself to become." Giles chastised her. "She's done nothing to warrant such behavior from you." 

Buffy gave in to the tears that she had been forcing back for hours. "Because the world is ending, Giles. At least mine is, anyway. She's supposed to be here to yell at you for going off and having a heart attack, even though it was probably unavoidable." She brushed her fingers over her cheekbones, laughing sadly. "That's a Willow thing to do. And then Xander would make a stupid joke about how old you are, and you'd yell at all of us for something lame. I want that back. I don't like this moving forward stuff. We can't even have more than one person in here at a time because you aren't allowed to be stressed out at all, and they think that we stress you out." 

"Yes, that does seem a tad ridiculous." Giles teased. 

"I'm going to let them come in now. Anyone you want to see next?" Buffy had a sudden need for a big bowl of ice cream and a marathon of John Hughes movies. 

"I'll see each of them, so the order makes no difference to me." 

Buffy nodded and stared at Giles for a few more seconds, then turned and left the room. "He's fine." She blurted. "He's not asking for anyone in particular, so... just one at a time. That's all." She gestured toward Giles' door, then sat down in one of the chairs, next to Stiles. She lowered her voice. "He's moving back to England." 

Stiles held a piece of butterscotch out to Buffy, silent as he watched her take it and unwrap it by untwisting both ends of the wrapper at once. "It's never going to be quiet around here, is it?" 

Buffy glanced up at him, her expression sympathetic. "No, it's not. But... and I mean this in a way that's not the least bit like an after-school special on grossness... you have me here. To help." 

"Yeah." Stiles nodded. "That works both ways."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally going to call this chapter 'The I in Team,' but after I wrote it, it didn't feel right to me. 
> 
> I'm well-aware of what today is and I nearly started crying when I realized that I'll be ending this story on the anniversary of the day that Buffy the Vampire Slayer premiered, but I can't think of anything more fitting.


	9. The Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter looked solemn as he cleared his throat. "You are aware of my family's history, aren't you?" 
> 
> "Oh god. You probably think I'm a complete monster." Buffy blurted. 
> 
> "No." He shook his head. "I've seen what a complete monster looks like. You're not it."

Buffy groaned at the way her head was pounding. She wrinkled her nose as she turned over on the couch, waking up slowly. She knew she hadn't been drinking the night before, so there was no reason for her to have such a bad headache. When the pounding started again, she rolled her eyes at herself and sat up. It was coming from the front door of her apartment. She trudged over to the door, unlocking it as she spoke loud enough for the person on the other side of it to hear her. "Guys, I'm really not in the mood for company, so you're going to have to - oh." 

Peter gave her a concerned once-over, then held flowers out to her. "I heard that you had a rough night. I thought I'd come try to cheer you up." He walked past her, closing her door before she could protest. 

"How exactly did you hear that? Did Stiles tell you?" Buffy looked down at the flowers, still trying to process that she was awake. 

"No. I think he would rather, as he so eloquently puts it, stab himself in the face." Peter sat down and looked up at Buffy. 

"Sorry. Why are you here, exactly?" Buffy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then whimpered. "I probably look..." 

"Like you had a rough night." Peter said again. "I'm a werewolf. I don't need people to always tell me things." 

"Right." Buffy stood up straight suddenly, completely awake. "Don't move." She commanded, going into the kitchen. She put the flowers in water, then set the vase down on her coffee table as she walked back through the living room, going into her bedroom to change her clothes and brush her hair, calling through her closed door. "I don't have to be a werewolf to hear you laughing!" She went back into the living room and sat down beside Peter. 

"I'm not going to apologize for being amused by the way you snapped to attention like a soldier." Peter shook his head and smiled at her. "I thought it was interesting." 

"I don't even know what I'm doing here. I just moved in two days before school even started, so I haven't been here a whole month yet and my Watcher, who for all intents and purposes is like a dad to me, is being way too mortal and he's leaving, and I'm not going to. Do you ever feel like you don't want things to change?" 

Peter looked solemn as he cleared his throat. "You are aware of my family's history, aren't you?" 

"Oh god. You probably think I'm a complete monster." Buffy blurted. 

"No." He shook his head. "I've seen what a complete monster looks like. You're not it." Peter stared at Buffy for a few minutes, smiling as she started to fidget. "It seems my nephew has a problem. He's been wary about accepting you as part of his pack, which you've become through no fault of your own." He nodded. "But he'll have no real say in it now, since Stiles is so fond of you. And I'm beginning to understand the reasons why, although my motivation is different from his." He grabbed Buffy's hand. "For a long time, revenge was the only thing I wanted. I got what I was after, but my victory didn't last very long." 

"I know." Buffy admitted. "I've read up on a lot of things about people that live here. It's why I moved here in the first place. It just kind of felt like home, I guess." 

"Then you won't be going to England?" Peter laced his fingers with hers. 

"What? Why would... oh. You thought you'd swing by and see exactly how much of my stuff was in boxes. No, I'm not leaving. I like it here, and my track record is... well, I don't really consider two weeks to be a relationship. We've barely gotten started. But you were trying to give me some sort of heartfelt speech and I think I ruined it." She smiled. "Go on." 

"I was glad you interrupted me. This isn't the easiest thing I've ever done." He looked almost hopeful. "Any chance I could just kill a deer and leave it on your doorstep?" 

Buffy snorted. "My neighbors are already going to hate me when the first vampires show up here, anyway. If they ever do. The younger ones can't do it, but the older ones like to walk right in and break things. Worst party guests ever. Even worse than zombies, and... I'm doing it again. I think you're getting me sidetracked on purpose. I'm just going to say one more thing, and that's eww. No dead animals. Watching you squirm is kind of funny, and I need to laugh right now." 

"I'm trying to remember what some things are like. I've been back among the living for much longer than I was even dead, but I was pretending to be catatonic for a long time before that. I'm a little out of practice for how to treat people that I don't want to choke the life out of. It's easy to make everyone around me feel that I believe I'm superior to them, but I'm lost." Peter squeezed Buffy's hand lightly. "Of course, if you tell anyone that I admitted to this much, I believe I'll have to kill you." 

Buffy rolled her eyes. "That would be the quickest way to let them know that I was right in saying it. Also, death threats? Can't you reformed villain guys find some new material?" She smiled. "I think I get what you're saying, and it's okay if we don't want to go get married tomorrow and adopt a bunch of kids from one of the 'stans. I'm not sure I'd be good at that, anyway. I'm kind of having trouble of my own, being a grown-up. You'd think I'd be used to it, but it's gross. It's not all about not having a curfew, like the brochure said it would be. I have to pay taxes and pick out coffins. I think dinner is a good start for now. And movies." She glanced over at her tv, then looked back at Peter. "Do you like John Hughes?" 

"I'm more of a fan of Martin Scorsese." Peter remarked. "But I'll suffer through a Molly Ringwald movie with you." 

Buffy pouted. "Take that back right now. Molly Ringwald movies are not punishment." 

*****

Dawn was a great sister. 

No, she was the best sister in the entire world. 

Buffy had forgotten all about her. Dawn had woken up to the sound of someone knocking on the door, but she didn't have a chance to fall back asleep in the guest room before she heard her sister start yelling something at whoever had shown up for a visit. She could hear Buffy humming to herself as she brushed her hair, which meant that the werewolf in question had to be Peter Hale. 

The reason that Dawn was the best sister in the entire universe was that instead of crashing Buffy's impromptu couch date in the living room, she was sitting up in bed, talking to people online that she knew from college. She wasn't going to let herself be too cranky. Buffy wasn't the only one losing Giles; they all were. But for most of Dawn's made-up memories, Giles had just been the old guy that yelled at her for touching things without permission. She thought of him as being more like an uncle than a dad, the way Buffy, Willow and Xander did. 

Dawn mentally crossed Willow off of her list. She tried to be respectful of the way people lived their lives, but sometimes she wanted to smack them for how dumb they were. 

Like her sister, for instance. 

Buffy had a pattern, when it came to relationships. Pick the one guy in the room with some kind of shady past, get his attention by using her own special kind of Buffy logic, kick his ass a few times, and then freak out and run away like a big chicken when he told her he loved her. 

It was getting old, really. 

Dawn heard the front door open and close, then the tv in the living room turned off. She said goodbye to her friends, closed her laptop, and got up from her bed. She stuck her tongue out at her reflection. With nothing better to do, she had brushed her hair already, but didn't want to make Buffy feel guilty. She messed up her hair and went into the kitchen, faking a yawn. "Hey, sis." She was definitely the best sister, times infinity. 

"Hi, Daw- oh, god. Dawnie." Buffy frowned. "Are you hungry?" 

"No, I had a granola bar in my purse." Dawn sat down at the table. 

"So I'm guessing you want waffles?" 

"It's too late for waffles, but I wouldn't mind a grilled cheese and a great big thank you for being stuck in my room for the last _three hours_!" 

Buffy dropped the plate she was holding. "I hate you." 

"So next time Peter shows up with flowers and wants to talk about his feelings, I'll just make sure to sit between the two of you and laugh at things that aren't even funny." Dawn smirked. 

"Eavesdropping little brat." Buffy chided, throwing the broken plate into the trash. 

"Forgetful big brat. Whatever. Are you going to have werewolf babies and go buy those little kid leashes to take them for walks?" Dawn teased. "Can female werewolves have a litter? Hey, do you think Kate Gosselin is a werewolf? Or Octo-Mom?" 

"I think I was done with this conversation ten minutes ago." Buffy muttered. "Just get to the point." 

"The point is, you like Peter and he's just as interested in you. If not more, which is kind of the thing that guys do, when they like you. You're not exactly young anymore, you know? It would be a good idea to have babies that I can spoil before it's too late." 

"Oh, so this is about you." Buffy rolled her eyes and smiled. "Why can't you just have your own babies and leave me out of it?" 

"I'm going to. Eventually. Stop looking at my stomach, I don't mean that kind of eventually. I'm going to date Robin." Dawn said calmly. "And you're going to get over your issues with him because he's going to be your brother-in-law." 

"Okay, I'm not that out of touch with reality. You haven't even gone on a date with him." Buffy paused. "You haven't, right?"

"No, but I'm relentless." Dawn shrugged. "He's going to be my husband and we're going to live somewhere around here, but probably not this town because I want to have normal kids that aren't having their lives threatened every week. You're going to let this thing with Peter be your last relationship. And I don't mean that if you two break up, you aren't allowed to date again. I mean that you won't break up because you need to finally have someone want to be with you forever, and have forever mean the same thing to you that it does to him. Not a vampire that won't ever die. But a werewolf that has a life expectancy? I like that idea much more." 

Buffy sighed. "Dawn, it's nice to want to play pretend, but -" 

"No." Dawn shook her head. "You. Peter. A litter of babies and a picket fence that has to be rebuilt at least once a month because of you breaking it to make it into stakes to attack vampires with. That's the life you should be living, not one where you're like Faith, but you don't even want to admit to that much." 

Buffy got a far away look in her eyes, smiling. "I can kind of see that being a nice reality." 

"Good. I've changed my mind. I want some pancakes." Dawn grinned to herself as Buffy got up from the table. 

*****

"It was just weird. I'm pretty sure that if she could sell me to Derek for some new lip gloss and a puppy, she would." Buffy muttered, smiling. "I hope it's at least good lip gloss and not that cheap stuff." She had invited Lydia and Stiles to go shopping with her, needing a break from all of the friends her own age that were in town. She knew they meant well, but when she had texted all of them to talk about the way Dawn had ranted at her about how she should start looking forward to a long-term relationship with Peter, most of them had agreed with her sister. Traitors. 

"I'm never going to settle just for being someone's wife." Lydia pulled a tube of lipstick out of the display case in front of her, then frowned down at the color and put it back. "I want more than that for myself. I always have." 

Stiles shrugged when both women turned to look at him. "I'm going to marry Derek and adopt at least ten kids, so I can't contribute to this conversation at all." 

Lydia pursed her lips as she stared at him. "We should buy you an apron." 

Buffy laughed. "Maybe some dish towels, too. I - " She stopped, staring in horror as claws protruded from the front of Stiles' shirt. 

Stiles fell to the floor in a tangled mess of limbs, revealing a much shorter demon behind him that turned and ran as soon as Buffy made eye contact with it.

Buffy grabbed one of the mirrors from the top of the makeup counter beside her. She shattered it against the glass of the display case, then grabbed one of the shards and sprinted after the demon, only barely registering that Lydia was sobbing as she crouched beside Stiles. The demon barely fought her, and the fight was over just as quickly as it had started. 

Well, almost. 

A few yards away, Lydia looked dazed. 

Stiles wasn't moving at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You might hate me right now for how I ended this story, but that's what my sequels are for. 
> 
> On an unrelated note, WoW has been a complete thorn in my side for the past week, but I figure I might actually get better at it eventually. Whenever it frustrates me, I just turn it off and go on gaiaonline, instead. If you want to friend me on either of those, leave me a comment with your username.


End file.
